Alphabet City

The movement of bees across the lilacs,
group brilliance spread, for each flower we touch,
has its own due time, a suckle, a rub,
powdered noses, compound but bloodshot eyes,
quick departures to drop off sweet treasure,
returns in wing-step to resume harvest,
never missing a beat or a petal.

We are the we who colonize this place.
You move, I fill, you fill my move, and so
we dance a pert, apian polonaise,
primal patterns that intoxicate us,
gluttonous pleasure amid the nectar,
I roll in the musky charms of Venus,
sans the desire to come up for air.

The hive is a place for our alchemy,
where powders convert to beads of gummy
cone-nestled honey, the local terroir,
the minerals and startdust peculiar
to only us, there’s no others like us,
anywhere in the throbbing that surrounds,
nor the worlds of impulse we hold within.

We move like a magic hand, our chevrons
sketch the same subtlety as our synapse,
similar circuitous routes we take
over the landscape, this ecosystem
is home, we are the flight we imagine,
we are patterns we choose, gestures we make,
bonds we forge, one in the one of it all.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

There at the end of the garden are
all of the seasons’ lessons
to be learned

So let’s Us harvest
for unless we harvest
we shall never know

The taste of fruit we nourished,
laid out to field beneath sun
amid nature on true course

These tomes are more than mere words,
they are …

Chagall (2016)

My point of view and body dance
in lockstep around the actual

In promenade, they turn to face
and beckon to join in the reel

Chagall 2018

I need a pen, a place to write
these rhythms in my head…come and go

Chagall 2018

I sense
I am
imperishable

Chagall 2018

He ran a calloused thumb,
over the Zippo flywheel,
out of flint and Ronson.

An older guy, the Navy taught him
to run between raindrops on flightdecks.

On the Boston when Spearhead Marines hit Iwo,
works now at Gabrow’s Toy Store,
there on Avenue B.

Runs numbers for Connie from the pizza store,
who works for Lucy, who is married to
Tony the Barber.

Watches Bilko, Burns, and the Beaver,
has a crush on Coca and Miss Brooks both,
fancies himself to be Palladin.

Sometimes hangs with Blackie from the garage,
or Alvie the addict,
remember – he used to date Momo’s girl?

Got beat up by the guys from Avenue D,
who thought he was someone else.

Has an egg-cream and Joyva jelly bars,
every day at Sid’s,
with the kids
when they come home from school.

Owns Action comics, one through ten,
in absolute mint condition.

But he’s misplaced his reel-to-reels, the original satins,
Art Blakey live at Birdland.

Knows how to treat a lady during slow dances,
like the Elevator, the Five Hundred, The Press.

Likes taking his time,
with Bonomo Turkish Taffy.

Is a Dodger fan,
but secretly likes Rizzuto.

Will not live to see fifty,
killed by a time traveler with a knife and a cape.

Chagall 2013

A couple of birds every year,
the same nest there in the
back of the house – they’re
diligent and proud parents
to-be till this morning I
find an egg on the step, an
egg on the paver, an egg on the
table, and an unusual lack
of luster and life coming
from their home of straw tucked
humbly away in my old outdoor
light switch. I gaze up to
where they live, see a small tuft
of hair crest the ridge of the nest,
and I start to sing slow laments, please
don’t-be-sad songs, as much for me as for them.

Chagall 2018

An eye for an eye
Ink for ink
Tentacle for tentacle:
Squid pro quo

Chagall 2018

Inside I listen
to sounds of actual rain while
outside a real storm rages

Chagall 2018

Stars are formed in clouds
Of gas and dust, nebulae
Nuclear at core

The eddies mist cold
Lavender melts under snow
Bleeds purple on white

Stars provide enough
Energy brightly for years
The exact lifetime

Silence glistens here
Chilled pools beckon promising
Reflection under

We are born of stars
So proud until we pulsar
When fusion ceases

Among all two find
A sense of having been there
Empathetic eyes

Eons erase hope
What once would light forever
Turns to gamma ray

Shall never lose me
Shouts beyond the din recede
To vast empty stretch

Pridefully suns sear
Hot too fast, too self-consumed
No cheeks yet to burn

Circular water
Too near the edge of the falls
The promise to drown

Godspeed is lightspeed
We see until we are blind
Not invisible

Holding fast they plunge
In momentary freefall
Defying the crush

We are dark matter
More of us than meets the eye
Feel our gravity

Two plummet headfirst
Upturned soles to God’s heaven
The tickle of love

Ripped seams in space-time
Blessed beings emerge headfirst
The dead prefer breach

Plumes of graceful froth
Envelop twin beating hearts
Up until the sere

Nothing left to burn
Suns die everyday out here
To leave voids of love

Suddenly without
Love’s denouement sings sadly
Still ache crescendos

Massive cores collapse
Passages to yesterday
Bridges to Other

Melody solo
Lost, searching harmonically
Hearts rapt atonal

When stars burn cooler
Life has opportunity
Everywhere blue worlds

Shall never find me
Resounds off wet chamber walls
Where echos loiter

The scent of Goddess
Permeates all creation
Sweet salinity

A flickering flame
Somewhere a flue, air to breathe
Pinpoint light quite dim

Life is atmosphere
Creatures born to see the light
Watercolorists

Ascension too fast
Lungs explode before tongues meld
Alive once again

Fine pointillism
Clarity from a distance
Planets at the edge

Shout hallelujah
Frenzied oxygenation
Salt water on lips

Accelerating
Behind us time looms ahead
Wrapped implicitly

Love again refrains
Adrift on sunny sandbars
Palm fruits, dates, acai

We are young again
Stellate beings thrice reborn
Twice kissed we are alone

Two swimmers azure
Water beaded sky blues hope
Refracted visions

Before words we were
Nothing, pointed subtlety
Essentially stars

Will never lose me
Mouthed indistinguishably
There underwater

Chagall – for wordcoaster