Archive for August, 2017


Unchained Punchline

…Albeit, a short one!

Chagall 2017

For Her and She

Everything I write suggests you fly away
or will you have flown?

Who would resist that you are leaving
and why you’ll be gone?

Simply put is
where I stay

Not really
solid ground

You’re so lucky to be lyrical
meant to be sung

La tra lala, is all I will ever breathe

Chagall 2017

Bailar

I brood the nighttime fantastic while
she plays castanets for after all it is her fandango.

Out back there is a circle of trees that funnels
moonlight down to the ground. A place to lull
ancient hymns amid crickets after twi-star.

This is where we twirl, the reason why we dance –
trip the light. Slap palm slaps to palm to keep pace,
so many tambourinists! She is my dervish by constellate light,

I know more than merely her big stars, I’ve combed eons that sketch
her mythology, made fine pencil drawings on empty sky.

Clouds enshroud the light enshrouding the garden, we are on
the shadows reflected there as moonlight on rain, so far
removed, right here.

The softest feather of far away thunder rumbles soothingly in my brain,
a grainy living presence there in my ears and mind.

Chagall 2017

For Ma

I told her I was pretty sure it was stop and shop
because you drive there, you stop and then you shop.
She said not her, she walked there, shopped, stopped
on her way out to pay, went home and started dinner.
I told her then she was right, it should be called
shop and stop!

Good night, Mom. Good night, Carlos.
Wherever we are.

Chagall 2017

Poem 1

In the presence of the timeless
I weep openly

Chagall 2017

If A Tree

Chagall's avatarAlphabet City

I’ve become quite skilled
in unspoken word
biting my own tongue

regrets of omission rather
than ruing the things I’ve said

l’esprit de l’escalier?
my retorts are always timely

mine’s the sound of one voice
a monologue
so I’m never wrong

in my mind there are no lips
so cursing is not as pleasant

I miss furling my lip while hurling air
at that back-throat k

my mind’s in the guttural sounds it makes
down along the curb

my silence is the good fence
that makes good neighbors
so they say

I sing out loud ancient hymns
they resonate inside my head

reverberate in cool chambers
in the crypts below the abbey

you will never know just how I feel
about you my friend

until the very end

know me by my epitaph
it will read
. . .

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

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The bird on the holly bush

Low to the ground singing
to elders in alder branches

From your vantage, do you see hope?
Show me then, where to fly
Pray, please guide me

Chagall 2017

i return to my device and the word application asks
want to save? implying my previous work unsaved,
i reply Yes for i trust my earlier self enough
to have made some excellent changes

Chagall 2017

on writing on

sometimes I re-read things i once wrote and at first
thought they are grammatically wrong until i realize what it was i meant

Chagall 2017

The birds around my home are slower than norm
There is less urgency because of the love and abundance of riches here

Chagall 2017