Alphabet City

First, begin with absolutely nothing,
no time, space, simply a predilection
for One thing, a spark to ignite the dark,
static, friction, a motivating force,
to kindle the frenzy, convert god-dream
to knowing, start a centillion factors
in motion, each without form or substance,
a shove from the unmoved mover: chaos.

Large circles of empty, bounded by nil,
teardrops of absence, without within none,
an aspiration, an absolute truth,
onto itself, without contingency.

Perhaps nothing never was, but always
something lingering there on the fine dust,
hovering there as a mist, in silence,
waiting, breathlessly, hopefully waiting.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Lazy birds sing what sound to be questions,
Trilly lilts angled so oddly in time.

Shush. Hear the hurrahs?
Winds schuss a course of boughs.

Waves atop etchings on sand
Erase traces of what once was.

Beyond, there come the loggers,
Mechanical, Om-like, spun chorales,
Mantra for flat-felled forests:
Erase traces of what was once.

I rush the treeline insanely
Unable to draw enough air
To support the bellow I want to import,
The reply I want to thunder.

To the wood pigeon, grand thrush, paradise parrot,
the heath hen and laughing owl,
the parakeet, grebe and island rail,
piopio, Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō . . .

My chest heaves, I’m a front-row mourner.
Hot eyelids strand gummed tears.
I see the world through rainbows
Cleaved cleanly through
My optic nerve.

I purse my lips, find the bird call in me,
Arpeggiate soulful lament
Cleanly without glissando.

I beg:
Take heed – just…