I wish my father-in-law was still alive;
he’d help me get the mouse-nest out of the shed.
Chagall 2018
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I will have kissed her face in the warm downpours,
brushed snow from her lashes, stood her umbrella in summer sand,
and pondered with her the golden passing of autumn,
every year since I’ve known her
Chagall 2018
She screams Read me! so imperatively
a cascade of chills oversweeps me, my arms
and abdomen profoundly hollow in the moment,
and though it feels to be a big hall surrounding us,
she and I are under the low-ceiling beams of her attic bedroom
her voice is not actually echoing off distant walls
but rather is muffled by all of the dampening accouterment
that constitute the mementos of her life, the momentum of her years
collectibles from seashores and places where calliopes played
souvenirs from dances and plays and carnival rides
photographs she vowed to savor and cherish
through time
Please just read it she asks, handing me the manuscript
and so I begin
Chagall 2018
Savory is to macabre as
goulash is to ghoulish,
such is the nuance of
the langwitch.
Chagall 2018
you dance and shake
your head vibrantly
extremities splay
and sweat sprays
about your beautiful
mane like holy water
from a sprinkler: your
music is a priest
in the light of the ballroom bass-line
you are a powder-blue nimble step-in-time
so lovely to behold – to be held
and then when the beat is gone and
tired calves hold sway, I will massage
you back to life to dance another day
Love and kisses from CC, 2018
Sometimes we wake up in the middle of the night
and toss a coin either to have sex or to make pasta carbonara.
Either outcome, once complete, we brush and floss and return to sleep satisfied.
Chagall 2018
A single thrill – one ordinary tickle left.
And so we use that as impetus to propel us along this line until
we naturally fall apart at some point, in due time.
Chagall 2018
I see her, a fine line
cascading the settee robed,
her taut outline like a bow
or maybe an arrow arcing
en pointe in midair
She is a slow projectile
running toward me – suddenly she jumps
Overhead all in a tumble
of sorts till she falls
to the ground once again
running just prior to breaking
into dance and then pieces
Jigsaws, pirouettes,
silhouettes curl their shadows
upon lacy pulled curtains
ceiling to floor, wall to wall
day after day, and year to year
To be timeless – she said –
one needs to step aside –
so she did
Some people trust falling backwards
being caught by others around,
but I never will
Chagall 2018
I shift doors and window jams
to create wind-howl
Chagall 2018
I have always glanced upward while awaiting my muse
Perhaps I’d show greater reverence looking down
But there I tend to probe more the internal roil
Rather the soaring epiphany of Erato’s day
Losing sight of the sky and despite infinity’s surround
Heaven is all about us – up and down and left and right here
She assures me
She comes in strange ways – in colors it’s sung –
A tickle now or after, the punchline a tease
Sometimes a thread of feelings begets words begets feelings…
While other times her heart yearns to search
Having never known lost but through me
Fingers to keys, lips to coffee, mind to matter to light to form, me to time
(a myriad of communions in no particular order of holiness)
Constitute blank canvas upon which inspiration transacts
(did you read the f%*king manual?)
Look dead-center and far-away for the close
Out there beyond even the more distant horizon
Where we all recede to a point but continue to fall
In and out of love topsy-turvy through space-time
My muse bobs sometimes like a lost balloon in a corner
With barely enough string for me to reach her
But I always do, on tiptoe or step-stool or helium
And I bring her down and I reassure her that
The world is not yet fully conceived
Chagall 2018
Alphabet City 