Alphabet City

I await tremors, tiny waves of seismic rumble to move me
to gaps heretofore unforeseen; shaken, my core
would rise yeasty and warm.

Digression is my mind
off-center.

I struggle to catch balance inside,
astraddle the if and the why,
lacking laurels
to alight on.

World-weary
from nothing, aspiring
to nothing.

And succeeding
rather brilliantly.

Chagall 2017

The voices of those I love, now gone, join
in the harmony of angels, to bring
exultation to day and blues to night:
mysterious melody everywhere.

Songs that grow from silence to din
to consume every moment.

Lilts by streams, legato drones among stars,
all to the top to rebirth time,
soli beget duets, until the world is.

Once, again.

Chagall 2017

In a warm hall, tucked away in a quiet corner of the snowy campus, her name is announced, one of many graduates. She has chosen not to attend the event, and so does not hear the calling.

Chagall 2017

I could tell by the way that she handled her boules
that bread-making was not her forte.

Chagall 2017

To be
beneath most,
above all.

Chagall 2017

There’s the drop – listen

Her heart opens to pour out
in minor intervals

The time after promised accord,
her hopes dressed-up like so many peacocks
leave behind embroidered whispers and pale-color feathers

Alone on a bridge

Her gaze more rapid than
the current

To submerge is to invert
ascension slowly in rivulets
without steam in cold reprise

Chagall 2017

atop deep
slow-walking
jade

bottom

music for
down some

broadway
losing love
more than sleep
some

other time

Chagall 2017

At the end of the day – the last day – it doesn’t matter who you’re screwing
or whether or not you keep the baby.

Chagall 2017

Snowflakes are similar to people: no two are alike and we fall when it’s cold.
But when alit upon ledges, we tend to jump; that’s how we differ.

Chagall 2017