Visitors from the yet-to-come tell me that
I am mentioned innumerable times
in the tale of the bygone years
© Chagall 2017
Archive for January, 2017
At the core of my existence I am certain
that poets exist on beautiful celestial orbs
other than earth
© Chagall 2017
I apologized though even I
didn’t understand what I’d meant
when I said his gene pool lacked
a diving board.
© Chagall 2017
The balloon from her last birthday
I’d left to bob on the ceiling,
over the years had withered and died,
and now resembles a pink snail on
a white-ribbon leash, there
in the corner behind the bookcase.
© Chagall 2017
Through the south-facing window I see the eagle fly
till the edge of the pane, so I run to the east
to espy her in contiguous flight but she is nowhere to be seen.
I return to find that the window is gone as well.
© Chagall 2017
The last silver streamer alights,
confetti and ticker tape abandon flight,
balloons fall from celebration
failing to be held aloft.
Remember when we were? Each awakening brought
a new day with new sun in which we bathed defiant,
we dared it to blind us, we countered with our own
heat, radiance, impulse to grow, and then to burn away.
Soft brooms whisk the memory; the clink of glasses raised
to toast is still there, not quite yet imperceptible.
© Chagall 2017
I had such a clear falsetto once,
soared the musical scale high above
any notes that mere mortals dared
to defy. I’ve lost it since the
childhood innocence is gone, left
alone, this humble baritone, no longer
a tenured tenor, soon to hit rock bottom,
a baseless bass who dreams of being in love
fully soprano.
© Chagall 2016 – oops! – 2017
The silence
births indiscernible harmonies,
as color is to white light
my prismatic mind diffracts
the life about me into one
of five categories. I choose
to smell the color of today’s sky,
to sing of all I touch, and to hear
your longing.
I reserve the pure
honey for the cleanest snowfall,
cold sweet manna paradoxically warming.
I am the slight tremble of spirit
nestled under the numbness of frozen skin
still breathing, in utero tucked within the outer layer.
From this vantage I observe the consumed tail of a serpent
tickle my inner ear, deliciously like the soft cotton swab
that she would wield after bath time to lovingly lick the final droplets
of water.
Unexpectedly the harmonies converge, crescendo, and return to
the silence.
I breathe the world eclectic.
I scream the night erotic.
I yearn for deluge more than float.
I am skilled in marking-off cubits.
Though I am Eve, I am unwilling to embark
on this eon-long trek to habitate worlds.
Seeking someone single skilled in edenic gardens
and edible permacultures to share in small-scale humanity.
I sit on my silence, a large colorless comforter that cushions me
from the breakdown of existence into buckets, bottles, and bed pans.
All is warm, all is toasty, here around yon virgins.
© Chagall 2017
Alphabet City 