Archive for November, 2017


Thermostatically Yours

I keep one room really toasty, another frigid-cold
alive most of my life somewhere in-between

With Love, Chagall 2017

It Doesn’t Last That Long

Anybody out there know somebody who takes the twisty on the bread-bag
way too seriously?

Chagall 2017

Again…

I open the window at times
to hear more than feel outside

The sound of distance machines
in over my sill

Headfirst out
now and then

Rekindling softer times
cupping flames to ward the wind

Deeper breaths than that –
now simply hold it

Again…

Chagall 2017

Yahrzeit

I burn many an overnight candle
For those who have come before
Bright lights in as many corners
Once dark in my mind

Chagall 2017

In Any Context

Wondering, two little ones or just one big one?
Chagall 2017

Eating tiny spoonfuls
of miniature chocolate morsels,
slowly,deliberately,chased
by sparkling cold-water
to cleanse the palette
to prepare for a spoonful more
of morsels.

Chagall 2017

Careful

A lion on a balustrade
balanced against all odds
slip sliding away

On a pedestal shorter than the tall stack
paddy-whack, in search for dog bones
here in the litter

What you make it is how it’s made
the stuff of space and in-between

Your smile there in the gaps diffracted
along the lines of so many prisms
charms more than shards

Reflecting what’s overhead:
to fall is to float

An archangel at triumphant arcs
arching, finding the longest path
to home

You’ll stay and
blue skies will go away

Chagall 2017

Tiny flying being on my porch screen
flutters against my palm for just a wing or two
before obliging to explore the red plastic cup I use to embrace her briefly
before release to the wild, for a while I follow her joyous jag,
then she’s gone turned into gray sky.

Chagall 2017

A fair-weather nemesis
never a fare-thee-well

Caught up
in circumstance

Softer than down
then I’m up again

Once on a ledge
twice fallen

Maybe you’ve seen
where we land

Point me or paint me
please keep me with you

Namesakes should
never go

And so …

Lay us down gentler
than air

Chagall 2017

For Laika – 60 years gone

Today is the 60th anniversary of Laika’s trip into space – the first earthling ever (as far as we know). I wrote this last year for her. I hope you enjoy it. —CC

In 1957
Soviets sent a dog
named Laika into space
aboard Sputnik 2 –
the first earthling
in orbit ever

She did not
survive the trip

I imagine she barked
in space all alone
jumping at comets
she saw out her window
tail and tongue wagging
until finally subsiding
to a sad whimper dying
closer to heaven than
any had ever attained

Chagall 2016