Archive for November, 2015


Pleuvoir

The light is perfect here
color soaks the moment
I see small dots of life
everywhere there is lavender
the brush is more patient than I
to render its impression
of God and time
I am immersed in Peace
despite profound disturbance
in the pointillism
the fabric must be mended
that bears the barbarism –
humanity and sane gentle minds
must once again conceive the canvas
we must wake up and smell the carbon
inhale the stars as one people we exhale
a single cry that is our lot
vis-à-vis the vast endless other
rather one another
warm, musky Friday nights
amour all around as it should be amour
lights, everywhere lights
gypsy jazz and a pack of Gitanes
i am jean Paul belmondo I scream from the water
startled bouquinistes and Dominique
et tout le monde est triste et ils me manquent
but my english is pretty good, just like your french, she said
I love you all – I once rode a carousel, the town square of Dijon
while an elderly couple sipped frothed coffee from lacquered cups
I watched the world gallop from atop an ancient horse
smelling the wind of the region in the cold turns
cakes and perfume, a calliope piping an old folk tune
Paris is a city of long horizons architected essentially such
I pray for peace, love, longevity, once again eternal lights
romance beneath an arch, a kiss along the Seine
an end to sorrow and hate –
yes the light is perfect here, I will paint so that nothing mars the light
the light is all that is essential, somehow I must grab the light and apply it
to the canvas, it comes in dots small points of hundreds of millions of color beads
that combine to give us all meaning all life it’s just color we’re all in the end
light

Chagall 2015

A Four-Fingered Gypsy Riff

Oh that guitar, she’s been so well treated
warmed way too long to be cold, rosewood and maple
with only the minimum pressure upon the neck
to exert, she said my phrasing was abrasive
like a french r, which I took to be a compliment
of very high order, considering her pedigree
and her particular brand of smokes

Chagall 2015

Notebook Tip Number 1

Keep your eye on the thing that’s moving
’cause that’s where the stash is.

Chagall 2015

Warm

I’ve been wanting to tell you of the light
how I can’t quite describe that feeling
of being heather-flat in color where rain is
I am slowly heartbeat again, no matter how you feel it

flow with no meaning and that’s a good thing
this window’s our square to the outside
autumn’s trees on furry gray skies, bluer edges

I freeze under constellations, I burn ice cold in black night
like star factories, a sudden and unplanned eclipse
my ears, both cheeks grow numb, the radiator pops

but then they are warmed by the light
southerly facing photons here in Arles only now
not many years later as before that shouldn’t happen
but light has a way of bending back

You are lovely as the Sun
and so I paint you wonderfully golden, alive and ablaze

Chagall 2015

Pythagorean? Perhaps . . .

1 on 1
between you and me
the irrational root
of this 2
has us puzzled

Chagall 2015

Aerialists

I told her I’m sure there’s bells
you can’t help but hear them –
There! You see?

Twin peals in echelon
waves above up in pockets
then swoops below near the prey

This close to the ground we risk
broken wings, we need to find lift anywhere

If I just let go I get aloft
I have long known how to walk on ceilings
I have sat on chandeliers
and walked through upside-down window sashes

I step from this ladder through your second-floor window
to entreat your love, float gracefully down to the ground unhurt
unscathed in defiance of gravity, grateful

graceful as a balustrade slide in white tie and tails
I win and heads lose, we embrace only these end times
not before, that was then while this merely is

I revel now and still
counting the bells –
you can’t help but hear them

Chagall 2015

Late autumn hot
unique humid
sea breezes in-land
colors still ablaze
I a burnt copper
in setting gold sun
reflections, perfect blues.

Chagall 2015

Just Noshin’

She accused me of leaving
too much peanut butter behind
in the jelly.

I told her similarly you
vis-à-vis the cream cheese.

Chagall 2015

Comatose except perhaps in trances
I’m obliged to amble – a somnambulist I am
the wisp’s own will, a fleeting glimpse

As a flitter upon a cheek’s a lash
the softest breeze that wind can muster
flutters by

I’m lost in your shallow breathing
in a warm cocoon spun of chestnut tendril
sweet oily aromatique

It takes but a moment to finally cease
I wait just a beat, then you’ll know

Chagall 2015

Satyricon

She asked me how the party would be
I told her to think Fellini, she replied:
You mean to say they’ll have pasta?

Chagall 2015