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
In this more recent age
of high-tech thievery and thuggery
I find myself more and more
missing my grandma, simpler days.
Chagall 2015
They repeated
No, no thought
Contented, I’d given up
trying to tell them
All things at once
is the same thing
Chagall 2015
She fell from the branch
immediately shaping a figure S
then soared on a wing full of air
while I remain here unamused
lacking desire to fly
Chagall 2015
A bedroll at the timberline, thin air shallow breathing
feels like snow, I’m alight, the blue of the moon is brilliant
across the fields brocades of frozen mist
never-ending giving, a place to bury one’s head
when it storms, a shawl over the neck and shoulders
a biscuit dunked in strong hot sweet black tea
I cut so it appears as if nothing’s been removed
odd over time how it doesn’t diminish
though I repeatedly shave a sliver
more often than not, every now and then
sometimes late than sooner
a paring, a sharpener, tiny fanned whorl of paper-thin wood shave
beautifully splintered skirts of pastel colors, pointed graphite
Atop the mountain I thought I’d write more
instead I live more without any need to narrate
to capture – to curate – to memorialize
to relevate
I howl insane and loudly under my blanket
I kick off a muffled echo
I giggle to myself in the dark night
I conspire with no one but the others who disenchant
disassociate in that space we reserve like a headband
Chagall 2015
She said it’s just a snowdrop anemone
a phantasm that I use to transform
materialize in a split-second wink of an eye
I steal kisses, beware!
I am peppermint patty in a fun-house light
pernicious and witty and bright and I pity
any lassie who isn’t me tonight
I am ten years old
again in a tent that I pitched at my uncle’s
one summer night incredibly long ago
ice and flame, the stars
beckoned throughout the night
I needed to see the stars all night
so I left the mesh-flap open
to let in light from so far long away ago
on warm local winds that carried the voice of cicadas
I haven’t slept since in awe of the world
once I’d slept on the ground in the beautiful light of stars
I now allow myself to float airily up
without inhibition nor gravity
intercedes
hoping
our
fall
is
a
small
one
Chagall 2015
The light is perfect here
color soaks the moment
I see small dots of life
everywhere there is lavender
the brush is more patient than I
to render its impression
of God and time
I am immersed in Peace
despite profound disturbance
in the pointillism
the fabric must be mended
that bears the barbarism –
humanity and sane gentle minds
must once again conceive the canvas
we must wake up and smell the carbon
inhale the stars as one people we exhale
a single cry that is our lot
vis-à-vis the vast endless other
rather one another
warm, musky Friday nights
amour all around as it should be amour
lights, everywhere lights
gypsy jazz and a pack of Gitanes
i am jean Paul belmondo I scream from the water
startled bouquinistes and Dominique
et tout le monde est triste et ils me manquent
but my english is pretty good, just like your french, she said
I love you all – I once rode a carousel, the town square of Dijon
while an elderly couple sipped frothed coffee from lacquered cups
I watched the world gallop from atop an ancient horse
smelling the wind of the region in the cold turns
cakes and perfume, a calliope piping an old folk tune
Paris is a city of long horizons architected essentially such
I pray for peace, love, longevity, once again eternal lights
romance beneath an arch, a kiss along the Seine
an end to sorrow and hate –
yes the light is perfect here, I will paint so that nothing mars the light
the light is all that is essential, somehow I must grab the light and apply it
to the canvas, it comes in dots small points of hundreds of millions of color beads
that combine to give us all meaning all life it’s just color we’re all in the end
light
Chagall 2015
Oh that guitar, she’s been so well treated
warmed way too long to be cold, rosewood and maple
with only the minimum pressure upon the neck
to exert, she said my phrasing was abrasive
like a french r, which I took to be a compliment
of very high order, considering her pedigree
and her particular brand of smokes
Chagall 2015
Keep your eye on the thing that’s moving
’cause that’s where the stash is.
Chagall 2015
I’ve been wanting to tell you of the light
how I can’t quite describe that feeling
of being heather-flat in color where rain is
I am slowly heartbeat again, no matter how you feel it
flow with no meaning and that’s a good thing
this window’s our square to the outside
autumn’s trees on furry gray skies, bluer edges
I freeze under constellations, I burn ice cold in black night
like star factories, a sudden and unplanned eclipse
my ears, both cheeks grow numb, the radiator pops
but then they are warmed by the light
southerly facing photons here in Arles only now
not many years later as before that shouldn’t happen
but light has a way of bending back
You are lovely as the Sun
and so I paint you wonderfully golden, alive and ablaze
Chagall 2015
Alphabet City 