Category: Writing


Breath Takes Me

And here I am on the road not taken
Such strange inks adorn these pages of dense fiber
Cottons milled by a barefoot princess
Toeing the loom’s treadle with a supple ankle
Her every step accompanied by wind chimes
Once disturbed by warmer breeze than now
She turns her head to show a long braid
Of intricate knots as if hieroglyphic
On the wall where firelight casts amorphous shadow
Rise then fall, I’m an ancient Mayan again
Till she looks away, moves her head slowly
At pace with a wheel that turns and turns and turns . . .

Chagall 2015

Old School Coffee

Walk into any bodega and order
no-frills double value half price
delicious as can be hot as hell
coffee regular.

Oh, and a paper bag of home-made plantains.

Chagall 2015

Although she was Brahmin
her enlightenment came
straddled atop a Shudra.

Chagall 2015

But Seriously . . .

She was a cannibal goddess, bad for business
eating half the prophets.

Chagall 2015

My Dad called everyone Cap’
since his days as a grunt Marine.

He never spoke of Iwo but I knew
it disturbed him deeply, men from both sides
deep in red volcanic sand strewn about Mount Suribachi.

They passed around pure grain alcohol
on the landing crafts, some hit the beach
in a daze.

The Oldest Gyrine, they called him,
he enlisted when nearly 30, came home
to work in a bronze foundry, flamethrower hot,
my Dad the grunt Marine.

Chagall 2015 – Semper Fidelis

I went back to school
just to get smarter
took a course 101 Discrete Logic.

Right up front, in Chapter 2
I discovered that no one makes sense
and everyone doesn’t not matter.

Chagall 2015

No Estoy Jugando

I’ve had it with fluorescent lights, filing cabinets,
Outlook, meetings, deadlines, deliverables, mindless drivel,
the drive for money money money.

I need open skies, fields of green, no pressure, nature,
my own hours, a way to get back to things that matter.

(sigh) Mexicans have all the best jobs.

Chagall 2015 – with love to all Latin people

I have maintaining and gaining down pat
Got a 65 on my orals

Chagall 2015

Small Inch, Big Foot

Consider: not some but all Yeti sightings
are actually hairy large men
who on a drunken dare
are streaking through the wetlands.

Chagall 2015

Narcotic

I delude myself to believe
that you actually read what I write.

Chagall 2015