How long can a syllable hold
before it breaks to the next,
crests in anticipation?
How long can you ponder the hour,
wonder if love’s just stalking
or intends to settle down?
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Archive for September, 2013
The thing
that’s you
is me
but
you can only hold one
at a time
when you’re through
with the one you have
you’ll well up
inside another
you’ll
see
exactly
what I’m saying
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Did you feel that life?
It was slight
just a perturbation
a single degree
from the norm
arrhythmic
like an offbeat
a rim-shot
to the soul
man, a cymbal ride
life is such
a simple ride
even better
with the top down
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
In a bedroom dark
the outline of our window
lies there on the quilt
perfectly etched in moonlight
a portal to another world
I’m certain
as I sidle a-rump over
drop myself into its panes
and free fall
into the down of time
I see you there on the other side
peering through the glass
above me, only stars
have had this vantage
love’s a sill
on which I rest
between bouts
of such rapid descent
entangled
in velvet curtain stays
you used to draw
the light in
On my side it’s cold
but I’m too far away
for my breath to fog
the glass
Dashed hopes
for finger-traced hearts
and comic book Eros
You recede
you’re a constellation
whose shape takes form more clearly
as distance grows between us
I can see you now
the epitome of what
you’ve purported to be
all along
My love, my discovery
so I believe I’ve the right
– perhaps I’m even obliged –
to name you
The slightest tear in the moonlight
leaves jagged cracks
with each daybreak I lose forever
my best and only way back
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
An old lady sneezed on the bus today
and the driver yelled out
God Bless You!
His benediction hung there
in the quiet morning rush
in the dust that drifted
in the slanted sun of near autumn
coming through the windows
And the dozen of us on the bus
realized that this was no mere driver
but a holy man
in masquerade
a messiah in blue shirt
his holy locks tucked
under a union cap
He later affirmed that he was
based on the aplomb displayed
with the hydraulic doors
and keeping people back
of the line
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
A Word About Chagallian Loku
Some detail about what I believe to be an original form, rooted in more traditional form. I call the form Loku, an obvious play on the word haiku, with a little bit of “loco” thrown in.
Loku is intended to be 17 haiku, a total of 289 syllables, with 1 additional syllable thrown in, at any point in the Loku, as a symbolic gesture to mar the otherwise standard form.
The poet should think of the Loku as 3 sections, the first 5 haiku long, the middle section 7 haiku, and the last again 5 haiku long. The haiku to the Loku form is as syllables are to the haiku.
There are 2 volta in the form, separating the sections, similar in purpose to the 1 volta found in a sonnet. These are the turning points, at the start of haiku 6 and 13.
The 3 sections take shape on the page as (8) four-line stanzas, and a final two-line couplet. The four-line stanzas are made of (2) haiku, in 5/12/12/5 syllable-pattern. The final couplet is a concluding play on a haiku in the form 5/12.
(Again, somewhere in the sections is an errant syllable, for the reason mentioned earlier – a gesture of humility and out of reverence for that which is Perfect; it may or may not be a third volta, and may or may not coincide with one of the 2 intended volta).
Visually the volta mentioned above will occur midway in the 3rd and 7th stanza.
When I construct Loku, I write them as 17 haiku and then form them, rather than try to write stanza of 5/12/12/5. This helps to retain the haiku spirit of the verse.
Lithographs
For Morgana Le Fay
The Alpha’s Bet
for poems in the Loku form.
A shout out to wordcoaster (http://wordcoaster.wordpress.com/), who has been a significant voice in the conversation to evolve this form. Search for Loku at that site for more.
Should any of you attempt the form, I – and I’d think wordcoaster – would very much enjoy reading your work, so please let us know.
P.S. Should you know this form to already exist, please let me know and I will retract any thoughts of originality here.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Hear the whisperer?
Ambient prayer in shadows, the dead hush too still
to christen the eve the big night before the day
when hard rains will fall.
Soak once parched sere ground,
fault lines that begin to show true and harsh intent,
exposed molten core bubbles up to shape islands
that cool and then sway.
On waters not named
still steaming in afterbirth biological,
delicate creatures emerge, rear their souls, awed by
wondrous beginnings.
Sulfur smells like sex
atop the fuzz of new earth, mossy, wet, and green;
the world is yawning, awake, kinetic, pensive –
contemplates its fate.
Allies band, foes die,
even in these early days survival reigns hard;
intelligence lurks, sentience searches for theme
to grasp the moment.
To give life meaning
words must capture the meaning, but there is no meaning,
there’s only intent, longing, desire for the light
absent the darkness.
The finger gives form,
shapes the world in seven days, give or take eons;
maybe just a whim or an essential craving:
innate creation
The remnants revolve,
grooved in concentric motions astrological,
suns rise over stones placed so to mark the passing.
Long live the solstice.
This too comes to pass.
All things fade away in time, hail hale whisperer!
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Other poems in this form include:
Unbelievable!
Come run your hands over this
feels like a new day
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Morning bells at this odd hour
I fear another has fallen
Hasn’t really left us
so much as we remain
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Arrhythmic bunch of dawdle
pretending to be hip
Tired themes
and moonbeams
such is the egg
that’s laid
(typo? maybe
such is the eff,
or the eh,
or the ell,
or the ebb,
or maybe even
the debt that’s paid)
The dead will rise
if you let them.
The sun does set
if you will it so.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 