Alphabet City

She said You’re trying to create tension in the dough
so I whispered to the flour with each passing knead
Some of you will end up as toast – live it while you can.

Chagall 2018

I do so want to untether
but what to sever, to cut?

Afloat a sky of many eyes,
awake blue flutter,
cloud-horizons, wisps
fall through helium
precocious and cold,
mid-air,
near autumn below.

Everywhere seemingly the hum of machines,
large and small,
fix and prune,
to make right the stray hand of nature.

The stranded blare of a horn, on-stage
or maybe a taxi when all the world
is foggy, early morning bakery-goers
groggy from the night, savoring
cinnamon jelly doughy dawn.

Dark pekoe brings out the night again,
air and color,
breezeways pervade my every sense,
each dialect I use,
the refrains my
heart sometimes hums.

I bounce when I hit the high note
and ricochet… exit – a sharp propulsion,
spirit and mind, honed to a point.

Nerve, sinew,
saline, thought:
exemplify ballast.

Chagall 2018

I professed I thought one could reuse kernels especially
if using air – not oil – and indeed if those
were further un-popped.

Chagall 2018

I typically acquiesce as I am much more likely
to successfully rebound from disappointment.

Chagall 2018

I underestimate the magic of a small room,
acoustic fidelity does make you seem real. The actual
time and place doesn’t matter despite the cohabitant tingle.
Unjustly qualified – I apologize, but only
so much, no more.

My uncle made money appear from behind my ear once
when I was a child, and I wanted to be a magician
just like him. Feign of hand for the feint of heart,
a lot like love and less like sailors on leave
ashore somewhere.

The incredible desire to leave is sometimes a prelude
and not necessarily an aftermath, something to keep
in hand on windy decks. It’s hard to believe there are so many leaves
this early this year; these wooden docks and breezy days
are the ones we remember for leaving.

For having been there ere to have left at all.

I dance around my meaning, like my room, fearful there is none,
only ramble, touch and sensation without cohesive element,
life-like. It is about coming and going, everything all the time,
with infrequent intermissions, too few timeouts where two sometimes
more people step aside and find themselves alone in small rooms.

Draw in and listen.

Chagall 2018

They think I’m asleep but I’m nestled on the landing above
looking down at the warm glow below, lulled by sound.

A party balloon on a ceiling – or
one of hot-air flying low, no higher than
backyard apple trees.

I am too young to care, despite the onset of years;
I dangle at bent-knee over railing to watch the sky fall.

The rush of blood to the head, the pulse in a thumb,
corpuscular beat – hearts and throbs and throes.

Cozied here with my favorite pillow, under nightlight inside
atop soft carpet ply, passing the moments of moontide
peering through the balustrade, listening intently.

Forgetting each morning the last night’s gleaning.

Chagall 2018

The world is tilted just so
we receive enough sun for laughter,
sufficient rain to promote bows,
legendary pots of gold, the hypnotic
lure, a kiss; bridges sigh
heavy from the rush of tides
downstream, the race for
calm eddies, shallow pools,
languid warm waters to bathe,
oxygen bubbles to breathe,
a world of no bother, between lips
in the interim – the gap separating
life, persistent, poised,
at the transom looking down
and in.

Chagall 2018

The dimple where the tomato separates from its stem
holds the perfect amount of salt for the bite

Chagall 2018

I’m a risk manager baby,
I see danger everywhere.

Come here
and…

mitigate me.

Chagall 2018