Alphabet City

Banjos, bongos and tabla banging
at the Bluegrass Baja Bhangra

Happy Hour! Drink up!

Chagall 2018

To learn to make wine I’d ferment
one-hundred liters or so a year
of fresh crushed grape juice, awaiting
patiently end-results that took months, years
to be realized; to accelerate the process I
switched to twice a year, Californian, Italian,
and French in Autumn, Chilean in Spring. More lessons
learned in less time.

With the roses, as with the berries, I’ve reaped
the benefit of having pruned canes, correctly and wrongly,
season after season. to learn first-hand – empirically – what
grows when and where and what doesn’t. How many blossoms have I denied
by being too cavalier, too quick with a snip here and there?

Unlike you, whom I have waited for for longer than I believe
I know you, watching your four seasons blow in, billow sail
and take you away, over never the same course,
the same year, only one year, without
having that once again.

And so so many questions unasked,
so many good turns undone.

Chagall 2018

We have no word for
the era ere stars

We who precede the spark
thought more, spoke less

Our sense of being is balled,
blind, but unbounded

A void filled with joy
indiscernible despite passing kalpa

Know that like light,
we make time fly

Chagall 2018

Dear God,

Escort me through this thicket,
shiny leaves, the thorns that rip
tender skin, this dense canopy that
amplifies the cicadas’ song.

My vision is
impaired rhythmically
from my heart about to burst,
on to off again, the time
between lives, not to be
and then…

Help me, God.

I cannot reach the rain.

Chagall 2018
 

Mistook mouthwash for saline solution,
mine eyes have seen the mint.

Chagall 2018

I hear wind chimes where none hang
but once had hung thin cylinders,
gone are the tiny gongs
they played, arpeggios in minor turbulence
there on the shepherd’s hook

Seldom does the wind move
the long bass chime, and so leaves
ample room for tenor angels
to chorus, harmonize
impromptu lines

Listen! Glissando
is your cue on the castanet
to fritter, loll away the Time,
soulfully flick your fingers,
waggle your tongue

Be a cicada to the meter,
Rita do you want to keep a beat
or what?

Silence:
the best ending.

Chagall 2018

I used the winking-heart-eyes-and-pulsing-chest-muscle emoji
as the situation warranted subtlety.

Chagall 2018

fire escapers roam the sides
of buildings alit atop steps
of wrought iron – l’escalier –

drop down to the street with
a dangle, break into gait
long strides to city airs

at night aligned to moontide
ascending ladders
hand before foot, then again hand…

all the time looking up
against the down gust
the essentials of gravity

a radio in a window
a spanish announcer
yells about a walk-off grand slam

Chagall 2018

Friends from where I used to work have since moved on
to where I later worked, and now I don’t know
where I know them from.

Chagall 2018

“I induced principles without truly knowing anything about
the taxonomy of the domain. These later proved to be cutting edge.
I knew I was on to something.”

(Chagall, Carlos; Life From a Fire Escape, 1911, Alphabet City Press)

Chagall 2018