Archive for April, 2013


Spring Cleaning

Too much clutter,
incessant yapping,
jabber.

Always I.

Tension at the temples,
my mind’s a muscle clenched,
a locked unbudging door,

no matter how hard,
I try.

Maybe, I
just go headless,
wear the world on my shoulders,

direct to the point,
forgo the face.
For-ego, the face.

Scour it clean,
get the gunk out;
it gets bigger as you go,

on the inside,
the less you know.

Emptying, empty, emptied.
Going, gone, gone.

I assert myself selfishly
to relinquish
any self-assertion.

Once bitten, twice removed.
I hit the trigger right,
and I spasms,

bleeds out over its edges,
a warm ooze, loosening shape,
seeping without form,

to fill no thing.

 

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Haiku For A Gnu

Word choice: choose a word.
Then once it’s chosen, re-choose.
Chew on it a while.

The choice?  Yours always.
You get to choose all the ways,
while you while away.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Haiku for a distracted Betsy Ross

one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten, e-
. . . .
. . . ?
. . . !
leven, twelve, thirteen!

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Week 3

Earlier that week, I filled with hate,
the rank odor of Sanhedrin
elders, soiled smocks, unwashed feet,
telling us to stop the teachings.

I was so proud of the others,
they stood up finally for him,
putting the blood back on their hands,
keeping his blood there in our hearts.

Last night, the Tiberias Sea,
was chilled, but beautiful starpoints
hung there high over Galilee.

I told them to cast to the right,
but as always, they don’t listen.

I stopped caring I’m different.

I lie on my back in the boat,
massaged by the gentle rolling
waves, seduced by the briny winds.

I knew who it was before them,
the glorious sun outlined him,
there on the bank in silhouette,
waving us in. “How was the catch?”

The fire was already on,
bread from wild yeasts on flat stones.

He told them to cast to the right,
and of course, this time they listened,
though they did not know it was him;

dawn broke, he caught my eye, smiled,
as if to say, “Nothing has changed.”

One hundred and fifty-three fish,
caught in the net cast to the right.

I could have said I told you so.

The breakfast fish, crisp salted skin,
the bread slightly charred, delicious.

He asked the son of John three times
if he loved him, would he shepherd
the lambs. I fell asleep then
on the sands riding the surf’s sound
to future days, time yet to come.

When I awoke, I was alone.

© Carlos Chagall, April 2013

The Locker

cropped-rainbow-shutterstock_117680335.jpg

Flotsam and jetsam,
I’m going down for the count;
bubble-up, glub-glub.

© Chicheme, 2013

I jump like diced onion
on the hot wok, your tongue,
splattered oil, virgin from grease,
too low a smoke point
to be in this fray.
My hands heal, don’t they?
like hovercrafts,
just barely over,
the niblets you bare there,
perfect triple toe
double
sokow,
yours for the asking.
icy toe
loops
frozen chips
fly, like diamond
teeth, rub you,
fever
down, rub you, fever
spikes, up
the wall, my knuckles
the back of your head
against sheetrock,
steady rocking,
neighbors toe tapping
to the beat,
smiles on their faces,
when the fat lady sings,
she’s a rainbow,
comes in colors,
true divas,
not pop divas,
come
in coloratura.

© Chicheme, 2013

pretending you’re pinero?
wearing designer guinea tees?

high cheek-boned maricón,
puckered, 22nd century james dean hologram,
pretending you’ve tasted a five-finger blade.

watch your step.
you’ll end up like kenny wild
did on that bench in 10th street park
by the band shell.

the less than grateful
dead hippies and hare krishnas
danced around his body while he drained out.
hare rama rama krishna this, pendejo.

Dysfunctional, dystopian fuckup,
mad max moron,
in your little leather ear muffs,

blade runner wannabe,
reigning like a runt,
at command central, U.S.A.

pretending you the real deal.
Oh shit, ROFL ROFL ROFL!!!

you ever meet Short Eyes
coming at you in the cage
at dannemora?

or tangled with dynamite brothers,
and run with ghost shadows?
juiced on opium and hair tonic

strained through a cheesecloth,
shaken not stirred,
beaten because they care for you.

right flaco?
you, pato, I’m talking to you.
here, gaze into the bowel.
sphincter, tu chupa?

© Chicheme, 2013

Division By Zero

So, how many people are there on the planet?
A quick search reveals there are five
point five billion.

With my handy pocket calculator,
powered by the sun, by the way,
I figure this is two to the thirty-
second power,
give or take a power.

I record my voice, I hum an A, four hundred
forty Hertz,
pure tone that I bounce to a second
track, so now there’s two of me.

I repeat, there’s four of me, again, there’s eight, for
thirty two times, give or take
a power, until
I achieve a chorus of me,
numbering five
point five billion.

I sit there under headphones,
in perfect surround sound,
the volume turned way up.

I am all that there is.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Room Below, Drumroll!

Sebastien Greco, Vocals
Carlos Chagall, guitars, bass

From the room below there’s a drumroll,
from good speakers, sounds like vinyl
pushing air, down below.
And up top a zoot sizzles on a Zildjian,

a zephyr in the trees,
just a haze, a cool gone wild.

In the mist, in the pink, in the midst, on the brink,
of a turnaround, one more time, leave it unresolved,
dead on the beat.

The pickup at the start
like bells on horses, loping slow in winter
but picking up speed. There! In the glass!
Under rough blankets drawn up o’er our heads,
or on a summer day, with the sheets drawn down,
tracing dusty rays.

Some spittle, a lick on a stick,
it’s just a rattle, a roll,
a drag across cobblestone.

I blow smoke, Ringolevio,
and 3 steps over Germany,
in the ether I’m there.
On your rooftop coming down on your fire escape
breathing in thin air, gone dizzy
in somber altitude, I unjustly expire.

Rough blankets drawn up o’er our heads,
or on a summer day, with the sheets drawn down,
tracing dusty rays. Some spittle, a lick on a stick,
it’s just a rattle, a roll, a drag across cobblestone.

From the room below there’s a drumroll,
from good speakers, sounds like vinyl
pushing air, down below.
And up top a zoot sizzles on a Zildjian,
a zephyr in the treetops,
just a haze, a cool gone wild.

In the mist, in the pink, in the midst, on the brink,
of a turnaround, one more time, leave it unresolved,
dead on the beat.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Point Sienna

From the beach to our summer house, you left
dark gray and barefoot prints disappearing,
a pace of one gone, every four you took,
evaporating there in the hot sun,
baking the pavement, in visible mist,
fully rendered, pointillistic, then gone …
Poof! I’m amazed you didn’t burn your soles.

You draped your long body exotically
with a wrap of sea greens, aquas, sun golds,
backdrop to the blue heather of your eyes.
Earlier, at the ocean pretending
we were the first to arrive here, this bank,
this coast side, this planet, this time around,
you turned to point, fins skimming the surface,

then turned to me, your face filled with waiting
my response, but I’d not heard the question,
as waves consumed your voice and I’ve wondered
what it was exactly you said that day.

She searches for sea shells, slowly combs sands,
then wades out waist-high; the surf erases
yesterdays’ traces, and less is no more.
She, it’s just she, shucking shells by the shore.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013