A slow drop of rain
falls heavily on the plain
Heavenly on the pale reflection it puddles
perfect in every way
Falling in time, once again misted
against stems I cling to
twine after twine
Finally carousels slow to the ground
long after everyone is gone
…sleepy heads
While high above outstretched aerialists hover
to wish one another adieu
Chagall 2018
Water from a bough above
falls upon a lower leaf
breaking the absolute
silence of sight and sound
in the garden
Chagall 2018
In the intervals of silence between birdsongs,
certain periods of rest are absolute in their timing,
and on appropriate up or down beats, only particular replies allowed.
Chagall 2018
I do not impress the Carolina Wren perched on the purple lilac
when in response to her intricate call I whistle Brian May
– the opening attack, Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy
Chagall 2018
Seeker searching for hidden odes,
arbitrary poems, to be moonlit kissed
Chagall 2018
My ear is fooled. What I at first thought was the distant voice
of a poet, is instead the very nearby rumble of
an imminent and reckoning rain.
Chagall 2018
I once saw a bee inside my porch screen
materialize magically on the outside of the mesh.
Astonished, I figured there’s a hole in the material
and I somehow missed his exit via the gap.
But you must trust me – there was no such interruption
in the flow of the tiny crosshatch of the screening.
Not a single horizontal or vertical line broken anywhere.
Chagall 2018
The day adorns itself with spectacular patches of sunlight
niched in places not quite forgotten.
Away to windows lovers will fly to see starlight
tonight before clouds roll in.
The day turns to a dark powder, a granular graphite that oddly is
breathable and invigorating. I inhale deeply.
Elsewhere lovers sleep soundly.
Chagall 2018 – rework of an earlier verse
I remember events that occur in my youth and
I know they are happening now
Chagall 2018
Bi-plane pulls a banner
across graying skies, says
All you can dream!
The moment is
an aberration in Ordinary Time,
extraordinarily so, unlike all that’s come or will.
I am mass, resonance, shape and design
breathed through glass, spun backwards.
Figure is ground, the toucher touched,
trapped in surface tension.
I see through the mist at first so pervasive,
inevitable as time and space, life, death, love and rebirth.
I waltz with myself in a salty room,
broom-swept but no worse for wear,
still smelling of summer, I samba
on sand from beaches I conquered, on
bleached plank floors carefully about broken glass.
I mist the room of petals
to keep them opened wide
alert to the sound of oceans;
dance-darkly waves, froth-sexy
whitecaps warm in bare moonlight
rush about ankles.
It’s the last day, the pieces away,
the board packed up, damp paperback pages
adrift on shores, stuck like wonton wrappers
Barefoot girls
dance ska, dark rums and tabla
keep beat that only seers feel.
On this day of reclamation, nocturnes
for atonement pipe through vents
that rim the sky.
Murmurs I can’t distinguish
clearly, the words incanted,
more than prayers,
I think perhaps formulae.
Chagall 2013-2018
Alphabet City 