She said
I will miss you when you go
expecting I’d respond
And I you
because then she would know
So instead I said
You’re nuts, you know?
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Archive for June, 2013
Was it Sara who talked
about the tree with lights –
sunlight so languid along its bark,
its rise, that it appeared to be
lit, as if by hollywood,
but instead it stood there,
dead center in the thick,
under a circle of cleared canopy, the earth tilted to catch
the rays, just right –
wasn’t that Sara?
© Carlos Chagall, 21013
I play the theme real slow, straight through,
a series of quarter notes,
crotchets in queue, all in a row,
set ’em up, knock ’em down, repeat.
The piece evolves, arpeggios
cascade, delicate filigree,
ornament already ornate
lattice, lurking at the coda.
Here it comes, ten fingers attack,
thumbs and forefingers like talons,
grab major thirds, tight consonance,
up and down, back up the keyboard.
Twin small children in burlap bags,
moving in tandem across lawns
well-kept, cut to a perfect height,
in the fading light of summer.
I ride the swell past the curtains,
catch a small shimmer of breeze there,
that lifts and lilts like melody,
ancient airs, hummed, not often sung.
The motif ends, slowly concludes,
real slow, like it was at the start,
with one subtle twist, a quaver,
a seventh, for the romantics.
And then a ninth for the holy,
with a suspended fourth, for doubt,
questioning if the end will stick,
if all is as final as that.
The last strains linger a long time,
under my masterful pedal,
pressing hard against harmonies
pinned by hammers on the soundboard.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Satellite images caught in transmission
between heaven and earth,
frozen in wave,
convey no story, carry no sound,
spark no what-if.
Remember all those trees
that fell in the forest
when no one was there;
implore them please, to reprise their descent.
Metaphysical monologues by a fallen elder,
their white flowers peek through violet berries,
leave us wiser, if unaware.
Light sometimes does not
saturate the silver of the film
sufficiently to graph the photo.
I scream in dreams
make no sound,
I strive to clear my mind,
but fixate instead on that thought.
I make silver dollars disappear,
yet have not perfected the reappearance of those
from behind the ears of my passers-by.
Told him point-blank,
still drew blank stares,
wrote blank checks
for ideas conceived on a blank canvas,
blanked out from lack of oxygen
running to escape from blanks shot in the dark,
filled in the blanks,
a five letter word for hope,
blank, blank, blank, blank, H.
Like a foreign language dubbed flick,
my words don’t sync out of mouth up line my move, now not but before.
That’s right, you heard me correctly.
My uncle used to make his thumb disappear,
just the tip, from the knuckle up.
I place warm kisses along the fine line
of a spectral cheekbone,
expecting cold lips in return,
somehow better than nothing at all.
Premature emancipation? Call me
for freedoms lasting longer than four hours.
I freeze dry my savored moments
add water at a later date,
whenever I need what was once, again.
I prolong the ephemeral,
reconstitute the insoluble,
permeate the tightly bound.
Sentience interrupts us,
awareness deludes,
covers close sharply on our skulls,
breaking our necks repeatedly.
I breathe through gills underwater,
my eyes fill with cold saline,
miles of ocean pressure over my head,
the sky beyond,
images caught there frozen.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I often think about people, the past,
the special moments that we used to share,
times together, now more precious and rare,
each second ticking shorter than the last.
Life is accelerating way too fast,
at a pace that’s really too much to bear.
At one time I thought that I didn’t care,
I’d already won my spot on the cast.
But a special play still waited for me
tucked away in the corner of the game,
a card to be played in emergency,
in case one needed to put out the flame,
when the drama’s intense, during act three,
the beginning and the end, all the same.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I relax my boundaries,
merge, seep outside the lines
to where I end, and the rest starts.
No such thing as this and the other,
just the all, what I am
is not as unique as I think;
sentience is.
Simply to meander as awareness
misting low over vernal pools,
is quite enough to keep me
live, a hot wire.
My mind, thoughts, and words,
all get in the way.
I’d otherwise just ride atop the hum,
the throb – am I the only one feeling that?
In my first month,
I knew my mother by her ear,
the cells of her hand,
as well as her eyes.
I was a puppy punching at my pop.
I once hit a pink ball so hard in the living room,
before I was ten, for sure,
it caught six walls, rebounding around the apartment,
before it lost steam, and caught the soft roll of linoleum.
I’d gaze out the curtains,
through the screens,
to watch you leave
early in the morning,
you off to work,
me a sixth grade insomniac.
I’d hear the bus air-brake on the avenue,
picking you up, taking you to the el,
as I’d drift back to sleep,
soothed by the tocking of your Baby Ben.
I think that time was intended
to culminate now –
always was.
I travel freely in nexus,
causal and otherwise, nasally,
nay synaptically – and syntactically –
congested.
My mind, thoughts, and words,
all get in the way,
I’d otherwise just ride atop the hum.
(That throb – seriously, am I the only one feeling that?)
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Small propeller planes overhead,
whir and circle, in summer sky,
drop straight down,
like marionettes genuflect,
on make-believe knees,
ride the cloud-scape, trace the rim
of bulbous, cottony profiles,
precisely, as if etching them on.
Girl next to me smells like lemon,
bet you she feels,
kisses like meringue.
The field is rich, primal, loamy,
though dry from the lack of a few days rain;
shuffling souls wander, kick up dust,
wish-on-me thistles, ancient spores and grains.
We stood like this once very long ago,
when the woods were not yet here,
when darker nights prevailed
letting in so much starlight,
so much more than now!
Then our eyes focused,
on far away, to the reaches of the roll
of the land, broad strokes of bumpy, lovely earth,
sod, thicket, sun and flora.
Very little then was near;
as we looked
into each other,
we missed the point,
gazing beyond,
the we there blurry in the foreground.
The planes overhead loop then roll,
synchronized in sunlight,
splitting the sky to unveil back-lit flaring pulses,
the blue blare of sparking pinwheels.
At the end of the day,
fires, like match flames, dot the field,
the diehards hang on
till the final drop,
when red-tailed hawks nestle in.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I stand in sunshine,
photons bombard my being:
untethered light speed.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
It’s Saturday might,
I imagine you all are happy,
making the most of your time,
this and every weekend.
You all are so much
better than I
at movies and dinners,
first kisses in back seats,
moving at the pace of leisure,
free from work and wake-up times.
Dance music, bounces the evening,
keeps the flow, inhibits not,
moves the feet, dervish and whirlwind,
along private patterns, known by hips,
strut and gait.
I’m a peacock parading a beautiful plume
of violet, indigo, and stark white tatting,
thousands of barbs bound the edge of my wings,
oils keep out the mist, that otherwise weighs me down.
I think of you coming home late
after a wonderful evening
on the town,
tired, consumed, and totally tipsy,
savoring Saturday into the wee hours,
milking it for all it’s worth,
knowing that it doesn’t come back around,
ever.
Kicking off your shoes, loosening your belt,
putting on your favorite album, vinyl,
at the perfect volume, pouring yourself
yet one more drink, sipping it,
in a private reverie, as you contemplate
the certainty of your being there,
the perfect clarity.
Let it all
just fade away,
simply melt into
the passing.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 