All it takes
is a line or two
especially if it bounces
to get a poem
moving along
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Archive for September, 2013
We bloggers are like bouquinistes
with our shops along the Seine
mine is at Pont Marie
I open my green box
the smell of weathered prose
yellowed black and white portraits
wafts all the way
to the Quai du Louvre
alongside thin trails
of smoke
from Gitanes Brunes
my brand of cigarette
For cold mornings
I carry a flask
of brandy
that keeps me warm
and much too obliging
when haggling over price
for the things that are mine
antiquarian
Oh, did I mention Dominique?
Her shop’s at the Quai Voltaire
she fancies plaid skirts, black tights
and ballet slippers,
both at work
and when we make love,
keeps her hair tight
in a chin-length bob
she has over five thousand books
and claims to have read them all
I’ve watched her
read them all
Our shoppers stop by
to browse and buy
what makes them
remember and yearn
for simple times
and carriage days
through summer gardens
down long vanishing horizons
where once they kissed
under the victory arch
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Our time here is always brief
a spark between two endings
the poem within the tome
on an empty shelf
a darkened room
the basement of a large mansion
tucked away among the hills
that begin to show the age
of the bedrock below
from which they spring
incessant droplets
of water
erode Everest
over eons
I will find you again
though it might not be
this next round
or the one after that
nor the next
Know that
the sadness you’ll feel
at night looking up
at planets and dreams undone
is the hole
of us
the gap between
beginnings
I will hold you here
until then
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I was hanging with Lawson
the other night
it was hot and breezy
under banyan trees
we rolled and riffed
smoked and drank
listened to 4-Way Street
he had showed me a night
on his town
reminisced
of better days
wines finally
come of age
I asked
Where’s Sam?
The shepherd you used to have?
Lawson smiled and said
Sam was hit by a comet,
a meteor maybe,
or both
his new pooch, Kerouac
came when he pleased,
ran at Stay!
and stood at Sit!
a mutt for sure
who would howl
Blue In Green
and pee the carpet
over Bitches Brew
you couldn’t help but love
the other dog
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Here’s to Voyager 1
Left the planet in 1977
and has this past year
exited the solar system
now into interstellar flight
cruising through
the darker plasma
nearly twelve billion miles from earth
I can see it coming now
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I could tell that I’d crossed some line
by the looks on the faces about me
A hush
aghast
tsk
puckered
sour
tuckered
mother
fuckers
that they are
and me
playing bongos
on a Styrofoam cup
gone gonzo
the nuyoricano
bozo smelling
of chorizo
and ouzo
yearning to be
set free
feel the cold winds
blanket
my soul
brace myself
with hot
astringent bitters
at the poets cafe
it doesn’t feel
like 3rd Street
no more
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Don’t smack your lips at me
and then again don’t
you dare not
After all
that work
to get this tasty
You just sit back
grin, call
me Scheherazade
Choose between
betrothed or beheaded
Not such an easy
choice after all
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Original jam
Carlos Chagall – Guitars
Dede Rivera – bass and e-Drums
Headphones set? Happy Friday the 13th!
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I wonder, is this as far as we go,
have we really tapped possibilities,
all the potential of being at large,
you mean to say this is humanity?
Fat alpha males in suits and their women
parading around town in finery
behind tinted glass and majority rule,
deciding the fate of the many?
If you stripped them down and let them run
they’d be most unfit, the slowest
cats in the jungles
true litter runts – off the record? – quote me!
We are one-dimension and myopic
singularly obsessed with that single obsession
to grow, watch the revenue charts
zigzag higher, and steeper,
thicker and deeper
I do so like green cash and glam
I would like it in a bank
I would like it girdling my flank
Make love to me, oh mighty dollar,
never let me go
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
The idea’s
injected
like an enema
just wait
sometimes it takes
a while
give it
a moment
(whistling)
nothing yet?
maybe run
around the chair
or hold
your breath
or hold mine
if you like
wait – something’s
brewing – can you
feel it?
oh man – I can –
here it . . .
nope, false
alarm
poetic
constipation
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 