Alphabet City

I can sense the shape of the wing
that my skeletal frame would require
to sustain flight

Like the memory of a limb after having been severed

I can still feel
I can still itch
I can still clench

I have flown

So many times that
my memory of each
runs together
such that I and I
are in echelon

From the tops of these trees
the city peers back with a lazy eye
and a sprawling lack of focus

A string of lights at the border
is sequenced in series to appear to cascade
first up then down, in so many colors

It is dark and I lose myself
in the surround of the night

Heavy birds weigh down branches, honed in on
the tip of balance just before snapping,
I sneeze and startle them all away

The moment you relax deeply and securely
into the updraft, you’ll begin to ride the scree

remember – hang low in the pocket
and let the flexible tension that is arced around you
the buoyancy that is, of wind rushing the fine cilia
about you, spread under light and sky in full spanned glory,
take you ever higher to loftier aerie
to thin and rarefied air

Chagall 2014/2019

my mom passed 25 years ago today,
I was so much younger then

I had to drive that morning to see her
already gone

on the car radio one of her favorite songs
oh babe, hurricane smith

…just to walk with you along the Milky Way …

the doctor says she’s in a better place
I get angry and say I don’t think so

her feet were the softest they had ever been,
cleared finally after years of poor circulation

the day before she makes a joke
about the Exit sign, winks and blows a kiss my way

decades
and my heart is still broken

Chagall 2019

To kisses I prefer
the intertwine of long necklines,
feline stretches to caress the curve

Chagall 2019

From where are we all equidistant?

At the grand scale we blur, become one,
indivisible, particles elementary

But at the grandest scale – the end of the day,
we appear to exist no longer

Chagall 2019

I peruse the space, stare at the various items
hanging indistinct there in the dark, and wonder:
which me will I don today?

Chagall 2019

I am happy to see the names Derek and Dirk on the rise.
We can certainly use less Dicks.

Chagall 2019

ladybug, ladybug
o’ so trusting,
undeterred even by touch,
walking across my porch screen,
with all the qualities
one imbues in a puppy –
at least for me,
such is my love
for your sentience

don’t fly away, fly away
ladybug

Chagall 2019

young trees wrapped in burlap
stand sentry, bulky in the field,
cozy under their shaggy rag-tag
almond-brown sweaters

with each nip of cold air they grow
stronger, every moment older,
as is the way

if trees had noses
they’d run just like ours

but, oh! come earliest spring,
how beautiful pre-bloom
with nothing but the growing-time ahead

…and I will bear sweet fruit,
throughout the days turn years,
for I am the earth and you have cared for me,
you are a fine steward

thank you

near the cove, past the lighthouse,
where the gray stone sentries
rest toppled (always in fog there) buried
under inches of moss and run-off,
lies a painter’s canvas,
a world of vibrant colors,
ripped and mud-matted,
decomposed, becoming
the very earth
it depicts: a headstone for the artist

Chagall 2019

I hate a push-broom;
there are times you
just can’t get
behind the dirt.

Chagall 2019

For as long as the flowers last,
the day lives on and you are still here
with me, my friends – the hope that was
our time together, the bright star shone

Chagall 2019