Your majesty, let this be writ today
Cineri gloria sera est
Glory paid to ashes comes too late
In waltz
cotton parasols like white petals
pirouette on open bud
spun this swaying lady
In tango curvy, nay brilliant
bryllyg and slythy
a perfect silhouette
A fantail shuffle
a slide-step past the moonlight
your finest top-shelf anything really
may your night be forever early
Chagall 2015
A hollow tube
filled with tones
and stars.
Icy blue
at the edge.
Nothing but
stars.
An expansive dome
shone with star-tone.
Dearest One,
Tonight tender doom?
No question!
Your Dear,
Dominique
© Chagall, 2013
It moves from me
in quiet froth
a verb
on a mission
efficacious
I would hurl
epitaphs instead
but they’re way too heavy
and oddly shaped
for effective
crisp defamation
In Italy
when the weather’s bad
they say
Fa cattivo tempo
So I say that
fast and over and find
some fleeting satisfaction
Warships aft,
life’s about to suck
and everyone is thinking
Frigate
© Chagall, 2013
There’s a song that I sing,
it escapes me
without thought,
no lyric but lilt.
Leaves me winded
and dizzy, though I manage
the pace of the line.
I breathe on the beat
where my grace notes should be
to precipitate delicate action.
In lush exhalation
I hum in the shift
of two tones.
© Chagall, 2013
It’s a favorite mirror of mine,
one where I still look good
popping a collar
or doing my best James Dean.
Background behind me
is plainly patterned
so I stand out
in bold relief –
the soft lighting helps a lot,
ambient, aside, overhead
but not directly.
I try to catch me in profile
but my eyes always seem
too shifty,
glancing as one must
to catch the view,
viewing one
glancing as such.
I use fingers,
not combs,
for the poet’s look
tousled –
save money on gel
that way too.
I no longer do
that mirror-to-mirror thing
where I watch myself
cascade to infinity,
or catch myself
walking away.
Speaking of which,
once there was a face
at my shoulder,
but she’s gone now,
off to some other room,
maybe some other mirror.
© Chagall, 2013
New day same old way
Next phase of this daily daze
Life’s gravity weighs
© Chagall, 2013
Some detail about what I believe to be an original form, rooted in more traditional form. I call the form Loku, an obvious play on the word haiku, with a little bit of “loco” thrown in.
Loku is intended to be 17 haiku, a total of 289 syllables, with 1 additional syllable thrown in, at any point in the Loku, as a symbolic gesture to mar the otherwise standard form.
The poet should think of the Loku as 3 sections, the first 5 haiku long, the middle section 7 haiku, and the last again 5 haiku long. The haiku to the Loku form is as syllables are to the haiku.
There are 2 volta in the form, separating the sections, similar in purpose to the 1 volta found in a sonnet. These are the turning points, at the start of haiku 6 and 13.
The 3 sections take shape on the page as (8) four-line stanzas, and a final two-line couplet. The four-line stanzas are made of (2) haiku, in 5/12/12/5 syllable-pattern. The final couplet is a concluding play on a haiku in the form 5/12.
(Again, somewhere in the sections is an errant syllable, for the reason mentioned earlier – a gesture of humility and out of reverence for that which is Perfect; it may or may not be a third volta, and may or may not coincide with one of the 2 intended volta).
Visually the volta mentioned above will occur midway in the 3rd and 7th stanza.
When I construct Loku, I write them as 17 haiku and then form them, rather than try to write stanza of 5/12/12/5. This helps to retain the haiku spirit of the verse.
Lithographs
For Morgana Le Fay
The Alpha’s Bet
for poems in the Loku form.
A shout out to wordcoaster (http://wordcoaster.wordpress.com/), who has been a significant voice in the conversation to evolve this form. Search for Loku at that site for more.
Should any of you attempt the form, I – and I’d think wordcoaster – would very much enjoy reading your work, so please let us know.
P.S. Should you know this form to already exist, please let me know and I will retract any thoughts of originality here.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I laugh
smirk really
at your hesitation
to engage
Life!
What the fuck more is there?
Okay, excuse my French,
I’m buzzing here a while
Have you ever seen
lights so bright?
Have you ever whispered
so softly like this
in starlight?
Shh . . .
See the quiet moon beams?
Purple black.
I will kiss you now
in the shade
of Orion’s Belt.
I am so happy
that you are here
to share a field
so cold, so wide.
Run with me wildly
this night
in the glen.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Such a lonely song
keeps riffing through my head
tells a story
of love won
and love lost
and sought to be
won again
A Spaniard in matador
dress sets the stage
the mood is Trompe-l’œil
nothing’s real
though everything
matters
triplets cascade
to tell
the story
slip
slide
away
liquid phrases
melt in caramel
another time
when the world
was want
bulky caravan
advances
on the
sirocco
make love
here in the sand
in the overlooked dunes
are you really concerned babe
about what they’ll say
when it’s just me and you
facing new days?
love
reeks
strong
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I am going to end
the weekend
in major sevenths
such bittersweet
yearning
for that day
Emilia
when you were young
and you rode the day
luscious
in a word
hymns so haunting
they’d make you glide
in a soft dream
harmony so rich
and vague
still lush
before botox
you’d pucker
so ripe
I crane
and arc
like an egret at storm
bring me home
to alight
on land
on a sandy beach
in a time
not yet
fulfilled?
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 