Alphabet City

I arrive before that which precedes me,
the last grasp of a fingertip upon what is,
ere the light’s implosion, or any notion
of stardust.

Chagall 2018

Bare your teeth,
I bare my soul

Chagall 2018

In the pitch black dark
Digital diodes flicker
Ominously on

Chagall 2018

If a tree falls on your head,
is there anyone there to hear it?

Chagall 2018

Sweet Gaia wept as
she shrugged off
the last of the humans.

I can tell you with certainty
that those were tears
of joy.

Chagall 2018

Caring for a Carolina Dog and I’ve learned
to carefully assert myself as alpha in order
to engender collaboration. A loose rein,
consistent touchpoints, and signaling
the next move through subtle pressure,
conveys the sense of unity she needs
to become an extension of my own
ambling awareness.

Chagall 2018

A morning like any other,
yet there on the edge,
something brewing, a hope
raveling at the seam,
beckoning Come,
the source of the light,
beyond the whispers,
void of the fray,
outside the seen,
the shape of a larger you.

Chagall 2018

Dear Readers, still relevant today, 56 years later —CC

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well-hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Bob Dylan – written in the summer of 1962
Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music

My Mom worked on Hudson Street, Lower Manhattan,
in the days when wholesale meat markets lined
the West Side. She kept books for the partners,
separate from the accountant’s; made tips galore
from the Blarney Stone chain on St. Paddy’s Day,
assuring each had their store-brined corned beefs on time.

Owners would call in their orders and ask,
“Olga, do you have chicken legs?” and she’d reply,
“No, all the butchers say I have very nice legs.”

Sometimes I call the old Chelsea-2 number,
knowing it’s been decades disconnected, hoping
I will hear her voice.

I have a few handfuls of pencils left over,
these once promoted the bygone business, pink, beige, green, blue,
I keep wrapped up in a rubber band, mostly unsharpened except
for the one in-use I wear to a nib. It is seldom I part
with one, but I make exceptions for those I know once loved her.

Chagall 2018