An orgy of copper beetles
on the leaves of my raspberry canes
I can’t beat them
so I join them
Très buff
is my new shell
© Chagall 2014
Archive for June, 2014
All that had been steady, settled-in around,
comes suddenly rushing
The hundreds of birds in the canopy
react as one spontaneous response
to startling
The indescribable things underfoot thunder by
as a single heterogeneous herd
I brace and move against this flow,
and strangely, never am touched,
sadly
I advance to the source
of impetus
At the edge
It’s not hard to step
off the edge
The sign says
no backtrack from here
If this were real life
I would fly
© Chagall 2014
I find myself at the door again,
same as before,
as always
I
embark
hoping to find the turn
that short crooked bend
to lead me to nestle
beside you
cocooned in
the umbra
to the depth
of wellness
atop dry land
and close to
healing water
a spot marked
essentially X
© Chagall 2014
Lyrics spun in the round
a chanted rondo
Tone intervals nudge
my soul askew
I am in the space
between sounds
A spark of the gap
between now and then
Enchanted bridges
I enunciate clearly Now
So viscerally
cerebral
So mindfully playing it
by feel
Elegant long draws
of breath till silence
Below me
abundant sky
Eons yet
till twilight
Dusk hums
key shifts
Concordant triads
of star after star after star
New starting
tones and fresh days
A sense that we will
always
© Chagall 2014
I’m lost
thank you for your
hints and oblique shapes
Mist on my face
in a glade that’s
not mine
In this place
where there’s no time
to advance
Until your gaze falls,
and I’m felled by grace
face down in the aromas
of lovemaking: pungent,
sweet, salty and loamy
On our backs
we are blinded by pulses of sun
revealed through windblown branches
We are shadows in the after-blink,
spectral and green
embroidered in the foreground
© Chagall 2014
Catch the upbeat
with a shoulder shrug,
more subtle than hips.
Convey as much
with a nod.
Start off deeper and slower
when you thrust, and hold the finish
make it go all the way, tap the hilt
if you get my point, feel the lust
along the long line you’ll hold.
And I’m not kidding!
Absolutely motionless
till the follow-spots fade
plus a beat
© Chagall 2014
I can sense the shape of the wing
that my skeletal frame would require
to sustain flight
Like the memory of a limb after having been severed
I can still feel
I can still itch
I can still clench
I have flown
So many times that
my memory of each
runs together
such that I and I
are in echelon
From the tops of these trees
the city peers back with a lazy eye
and a sprawling lack of focus
A string of lights at the border
is sequenced in series to appear to cascade
first up then down, in so many colors
It is dark and I lose myself
in the surround of the night
Heavy birds weigh down branches, honed in on
the tip of balance just before snapping,
I sneeze and startle them all away
The moment you relax deeply and securely
into the updraft, you’ll begin to ride the scree
remember – hang low in the pocket
and let the flexible tension that is arced around you
the buoyancy that is, of wind rushing the fine cilia
about you, spread under light and sky in full spanned glory,
take you ever higher to loftier aerie
to thin and rarefied air
© Chagall 2014
Conceived this time of a timeless place
I dispense with what I once thought indispensable
making long strides and good time across heavy wood
where the tensed remains of the slaughter
anticipate rebirth, revenge: dormant, latent, and underfoot
I walk on air a step at a time
to scale the canopy, to climb to richer vantage
I observe as I hover, as I sow I pray
to be blessed with bounty
I am spared heartbreak of mythical size
humbly seeking no lesson or lasting sorrows
My joy need be your joy and you shall stoke
a flame if I ask
© Chagall 2014
In the first still of the evening
when branches hold their last light
and the dying day looks back and deems itself good,
when nothing moves – even birds on a limb
and sound travels in short waves
fireflies rehearse their lines
they stutter in quirky hover
oh what to say to the dark, kisses or whispers
small blue pilot flames throughout the trees
blink once since they like what they saw
and every now and then
a rousing wind that sweeps it all
clean, accelerates clouds through violet skies
the transition comes quick, deadly serious
day turns to night, the food chain resets
ancient hunters and petite nymphs begin to grace
the heavens in jeweled patterns conceived as
perforations, star paths which one tears
to recollect segments of sky
© Chagall 2014
I grabbed her off the vine
this Colorado Potato Beetle
and immediately considered
crushing her in two or three.
The damage she had wrought
was absolute, death warranted.
But I decided to send a message
to the others out there hovering.
I held her by her stupid shell
and dangled her high there
above the earth covered with
dead blossoms and barren leaves.
I brought my face to hers and
I told her very distinctly:
Stay away from my Yukon Golds
if you want to live – you get me?
And tell the others to do the same.
I squeezed so she’d get the point
then released my fingers and watched
her fly away, a tiny ball of copper.
© Chagall 2014
Alphabet City 