Archive for December, 2013


If The Universe Was W.C. Fields

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Rumor of my expansion
has been grossly
underplayed

Rimshot

But seriously . . .

You’ve been
a great Creation

Good night
and drive safely

© Chagall 2013

Formula

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Here’s our sugar,
coffee and rice

We enjoy your teas,
so many lentils!

We’ll take
each what we need,
no more
and we’ll leave
the rest

At the end
of each day
under stars
and over fires

Under no pretense,
over strong beverage
and each our dead bodies
under Creation

We will open our hearts
to each other
of Earth

And we will arise
the better

© Chagall 2013

Knight Shift

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Spires in the glare of day
leave me dizzy on the battlement
a precarious place to be

Yet I’m stretched on her bed
under the slow drizzle
of cold lilac water from sponges
she keeps in a porcelain basin

Drop
by bracing
drop

And then
I fall

© Chagall 2013

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I gaze at heaven
snowflakes gather on my eyes
where gods trace angels

© Chagall 2013

Context

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Nothing

Languid
for eons

Till a hum
from nowhere

Suddenly
everywhere is somewhere

The rest
is history

Welcome
to the now

© Chagall 2013

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I poke through
the seam around the edge
I’m expelled
as a tear from a wink

I roll down the cheek
of beautiful existence
she licks the top of her lip
where I come to rest
if I do

I am
viscous
as mercury
silver against black
creation in stars atop night

I am happy to be day
if only she’d be twilight

My lives sprinkle from my palm
diamonds alight on jeweler’s silk

She chooses her favorite outcomes
set in tricolor braids of gold

If I’m diverted
as a tear
I will miss her lips
and instead disappear
in mid-air

© Chagall 2013

Careful, Just Don’t Fall

Originally blogged on July 19th, 2013. —Chagall

Chagall's avatarAlphabet City

Things don’t fall
so much as the world rushes up
to meet them where they float
everything’s falling
so nothing moves
apparently

my heart drops
dips on a steep rise
when I see you these
skittish palpitations

slow loping
gravity hang-glides
free-fall
alighting gently

touchdown running
on the soles of my feet

so solid this ground
curves under me

perfectly bouncing
I’m buoyant

on ground sponge
baked in rain

still falling
on planets

big rocks
in mid-air

as a failed aerialist
I know the last fall’s hardest

to mistime
to lose heart

to miss the palm of the hand
outstretched in mid flight

people don’t fall
so much as the ground rushes up
to meet them

everyone’s falling
apparently

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

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Odd, how nothing stirs
and there is no sound
just a gray day lost
in this maze of evergreen hedge

Who mows the grass
so tight here,
who keeps the branches
so trim?

I shout
a quick hey
but I know
there’s no one around
anywhere anymore

Yet the maze
is so well-kept . . .

© Chagall 2013

Night Rain

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They say if you want
the things you love
you’ll need to endure
headfuls of rain

Soaked down squeaky
clean your umbrella
turned upside

Sing it with me
if you know the tune
Did they promise you copper tiding?

Come play with me
under covers pretend
we are lost at sea
or beneath an avalanche

Or simply
not here
now

Into the wind blowing through the window
open at the head of the bed
we emerge to kiss in cool drizzle

How magnificent the curves of your shadow
thrown on the wall for a moment
in an arc of lighting

All blessings, like pennies
come from heaven

We make love to the lack
of rhythm of raindrops
that fall around
through fine ceiling cracks

Both atop and under
the blankets

So yes
twice

It takes days
but the room
finally dries

© Chagall 2013

Haiku For Imbroglio

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My neighbor’s porch lights
shine on streaks of dark rain flung
from her yard to mine

© Chagall 2013