the curve of her body
reclined on the settee
late morning light
the sharp intake of breath that incites
reason to live
Chagall 2019
Category: Poetry
without light
to help us discern
shape and design
we perish
believing ourselves
to be amorphous being
existence
without boundary:
all feel
Chagall 2020
We are ensnarled in a foldaway bed
once again head upside-down in the wall
flat and dark, dank, claustrophobic for sure
We’ve nothing to push against, hold onto,
no fulcrum or lever, only God now
Look down, point your ear our way
Hear our prayer
Chagall 2020
I have lunch everyday
on the last remaining
Blue Ridge plate from
the set, apples on a
stem – I remember when
they were all brand new,
un-chipped, unused, so
much life still ahead.
Chagall 2020
I said, “Babe, could you make fresh coffee please?”
He said, “There’s still some leftover in the thermos from the morning.”
I said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll go wring out some shit and drink that instead.”
He laughed. I laughed.
Siri laughed.
Chagall 2020
Betelgeuse dims,
Orion’s bold imprint against the night lessens
When the star burns out
the face of heaven will change
Moments we miss for not looking up
where stars die every day
There is more empty space,
less matter than appears
(she is more distant)
to be
We perish once
every lifetime
With infinite stars it is likely
one dies each tick of time
Constellations adapt to new sky,
radiance catches up over the years
People change
Chagall – 2020
egyptologists have scraped
from inside old urns
four thousand
five hundred
year old
yeast
from which they’ve baked bread,
crusty and tasty as an ancient jadda
Chagall 2020
my music appears
to delight the birds
the winter cardinals especially
perk up in earnest
a soundtrack to backdrop
their colder notes
a single breath-trilled phrase
mingles in icy snowfall
quieter these days
song exits the woods
through a hole in the refrain
I chance to breathe
to partake of that
into which I am born
Chagall 2020
this weekend while away I dreamed I could fly
but only through windows with sashes pulled down,
dimmed blue sky
sometimes frantically caught in corridors
gasping for air, seeking egress
and I awake – I believe –
to return home to find
a sparrow barely breathing
behind the porch screen
did I dream your dream last night?
searching for you out of windows
drawn down to nothing but sky forever twilit
somewhere between Ochre and Indigo
Chagall 2020
I said
While our styles differ,
you, the earthly sublime,
I, the absurdly surreal…
she finished
…we ultimately say the same thing
Chagall 2019
