She exclaimed
Such a beautiful church
it’s non-dimensional
I asked
You mean non-denominational,
don’t you?
She retorted
No, come look
She swung open the large wooden door. I walked in.
Oh, I see what you mean.
oh!
o
h
!
m
y
G
o
d
!
.
.
.
Chagall 2015
What do you most need to hear right now,
and what do I ache to tell you?
Your very existence suffices, it’s all Is.
Our options: there is no God; there is no You;
You are God; there’s Nothing but God.
Choose one or the other,
all or not; it’s one in the end.
I yearn to
return to the Ordinary immersed in colors, deeply absorbed
in light extraordinaire, the water not the wave.
I shed the boundaries, address what is there beyond me –
the other – as You inclusive of me. I switch the wires,
so to speak. I co-opt all of existence, call it my own.
Creation is a figure cast like a rainbow upon my ground,
just a stone’s throw from joy.
© Chagall ∞
Last night when I came into the bedroom,
I turned the light on low. You were asleep
with the most wonderful look on your face.
On your back with your hands drawn to your chin,
your shoulders raised in a shrug, eyes tight,
Duchenne smile, you beheld the marvelous,
cheeks red, lips pursed in amazement, as if
you were witnessing the birth of a star.
I watched you, in the presence of angels,
then I closed the light and raised the blanket,
and cautiously slid in there beside you,
so not to startle, jar your reverie.
I found my place in our nighttime hollow,
sunk in the mattress, you shifted and slid
into orbit along my gravity,
snuggling up warm and long against my back.
We are ancient Mayans drawn on the wall,
in the capsule, awaiting reentry.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
She is comprised solely
of essential oils, lovely
silken flow, pistons in valve
lubricant, stamens on pistil,
pollen swollen anthers, she wills
the will of the wisp to do
her bidding, she calls sweetly
through the nightbird, coopts
its thin coiled chord to vocalize,
to trill appoggiatura.
I relax limb and tenon about her,
promenade on wrists and knees:
gymnopédie as it was meant to be,
arched, pointed, and flexed.
© Chagall ∞
Dion singing about runaway girls,
makes me want to pull my heart
tighter around the years, they pass.
Kisses fade into scents of lilac
where lavender used to be, where
there will never be roses.
I couldn’t bear apologies from
so tender a spirit, especially
for naught, such was her challenge.
I etch the horizon precisely where neon should be,
pretending there are bridges and stars hanging
in thin city air.
I’ve imagined myself as a silhouette on rooftops
blending with balustrades and fire escapes, in shadow
descending quietly.
To find her alone on Belmont Avenue, under streetlight,
in gentle snowfall, in warm rain, wherever her life
turned inclement.
And time is like an arrow struck from the quiver
of a rosined bow, approaching its acme.
…ask any fool that she ever knew …
© Chagall ∞
Hey, if you want ice
You gotta fill the trays.
© ChaChagall ∞
Thinking of writing a screenplay for a latina
biker-type detective, call it and the character
Blue Agave –
Thoughts?
© Chagall ∞
She had tucked the onion matzoh up high and away,
in its own cellophane inside a ziploc, back in the box.
So much for easy snackin’.
© Chagall ∞
Water bead grass bayonets cut tongues,
steely dew, fondant of morning rain.
How I love to lie eye-level to ground
to look up at tall blades against the sky.
I have an itch on my cheek that only closely
coiffed tightly tufted turf can scratch.
I mistake her smile for mist or soft rain,
so similar they are in drizzle pattern.
There’s a run of slatted fence traces hillsides,
hugs the rise and the run of the land as a tribute to time.
Eyes beguile but only if you let them, don’t you let them, don’t they say?
Sometimes the wax can be saved to create brand new candles to burn.
Eye-level to ground the flames from above
cast my outline as an amber cold hollow.
That which is me which does not pass light
rests immortalized sunk into shadow.
With morning comes water nourishing.
The eye adjusts to blue. Rain sugars dew.
© Chagall ∞
I yearn for the happiness
that you do not feel
I vibrate my total being
to will it so
I learn instead that
love can grow from sorrow
Chagall 2016
Alphabet City 