Alphabet City

Pearl oil drips
a necklace about the pillow,
lace tat, fringed lavender,
purely sound, the rustle
of starched, ancient,

ivory-white
sheets, crisply settling in
to form to bodies, too hot
to be contained ‘neath coverlets,
or anything doily.

Taut, crimson nipples,
rouged like the peaks of Charlotte Rouse,
whipped cream, angel cake,
engorged obscene, delightfully rubbery
pliant, pulls at the overtones,
the sparkles, humming bees,
bullets along the loin,
palms rubbing along the bodyline.

Quantum of delight, mass and mount,
break the outer ring,
awestruck in orbit.

Riding the curl,
on the inside of the wave,
anticipating the crest,

glimpsing it pass,
to receding echo,

perpetual motion,
in perpetuity,
not of our own making.

Heavy-headed, dream state sedate,
I am color, bone:
sentience.

A pensive
entity breathes heavy,
inhales deeply,
tropical musk,
new-found Eden,
soporific, entranced.

I am too heavy
in this alien gravity;

I bounce, bound in slow ponderous moonbeams,
my voice octaves lower,
words on long sine curves
enunciate at a rate of one per lifetime.

So much to say,
when a paragraph of expression
takes an eon
to convey.

So instead I brush
soft S curls
from your brow
and ponder the perfection
of your temple,

the fine matte of your hair,
in combed sweeps back,
feeling the pulses there,

your beat, your blood,
your primal rush,
billions of years old,
yet seconds fresh,

smelling like ocean, and gulls,
rich in alga and loam,
a lode of embraceable creation,
wound up there in taffeta.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

This is what she said to me:

And when I go, and when it rains,
that will be me.

Whenever the day
is travel and arrive,
and it’s pouring most of the way,
then stops?

That’s me.

That feeling of if only
the sun would come out
to dry the mist
from shallow puddles?

The sweep of wipers
keeping the road ahead clear,
frenzied, then fast, then feint,
then off, the windows dry,
and cracked,

to let in light,
on waves of cool air
riding from the breakers?

Yep, that’s me.

For Maria Rose Chagall

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

I am carved space,
at the very end,
a leaf node
of multiverse.

A box of assorted truffles,
variation on a theme,
a bouquet of balloons,
white light cracking
prisms,
continuous color,
overtone in the hum,
that suddenly can
stop.

Cinnamon myrrh
to anoint,
laid out on hot rock;
vibraphones on black velour
ascending minor intervals,
I hold stripped electrical wires,
and stand in shallow pools,
basil and lavender on my tongue.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Yep,
maybe,
just not sure.

A shrug,
quick exit,
the sound of hurried footsteps,
the closing bedroom door.

I miss you already,
the moment that could have been,

had we actually reached
across the divide
to the other,

instead talked
of the persistent hum,
our backdrop,
figure and ground,

of blood, throbs,
the beat, our hearts,
sweet air, the glimpse
of the holy.

But instead,
we parted,
to remember on the staircase,
the things we should have said.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013