While I would die for my children
she would undergo suffering for any;
such selflessness is her sainthood.
© Chagall 2014
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Originally posted August 19, 2013. Here’s to starting your week off right. —Chagall
If I was a goddess
I would mesmerize
the faithful,
liquefy
the doubtful,
eat chocolate by
the mouthful,
spend each night under
my sky full
of stars,
if I was a goddess.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Angels topple from the heads of pins,
who knew there’d be so many?
I fail to feel triumphant
amid such sad hurrah.
Their anguished song as one rues the lesser vantage;
while I’d rather reign than occupy, pray than hope, I choose instead
to fly away and alight atop an ancient arch, not very far from the fall.
© Chagall 2014
The northern lights are visible this weekend
though overcast skies keep them from us; late Sunday
they blow away to reveal a cold bowl of stars,
dark wisps, sprigs of clouds, halos, coiled pasta,
organic tendrils; we let go the tether and ride the turbulence
Sad duets lost at the bridge, flicker wildly,
strive to hold their flame; so much burns so quickly
With you along the night passes slowly, deliciously
under swirling polar lights, concentric heavens,
odysseys etched in the dome, the routes of gods to God;
early wayward travelers gaze down to balance our heavenly vigor
Immortality is knowing,
we sample each permutation,
subtle flavors, acquired tastes
We are naked, dead in each others arms,
the end of the earth at the pole, frozen,
fused blue ice, unbearably, insanely happy
© Chagall 2014
Everyday we lose subtleties,
small gestures of grace and faith
now somewhere in the void.
Perhaps not irretrievable:
one would need a hand,
a borrowed shoulder and someone’s heart maybe to cry on.
I pulse, you pulse, the way it’s supposed to happen
over time.
A perch,
unseen bird relaxes
and intuitively expels
the only song in the world.
A branch,
doves couple and breathe
into one another.
So rarefied from atop the canopy,
I yearn to stretch and become the horizon.
God, I am so endeared to the splay of existence,
I shake because I feel too much.
Too much
fades away.
© Chagall 2014
Originally posted on July 18, 2013. To a wonderful Friday. —Chagall
Most make a cross
then bisect the diagonals
with an X
voila – l’asterisk
She did that
but then added
another set of lines
intersecting those
doubling the number of angles
It took her a while to render
her precise tight asterisks.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Last night
on Dream Orbs
Earth lost
© Chagall 2014
So bone brittle cold
even near the tips of stars . . .
that pulse, you feel it?
© Chagall 2014
She’s too polite a poetess perhaps, upbringing is hard to shake,
with the grace to condone even those who’d regard her
disdainfully, empowered to do so by her own decree,
so self-destructive she is.
Be not reluctant
to unveil secrets after all
that’s what words which glance aslant are for . . .
she once wrote, or something to that effect and along those lines.
Her speech once was cursive, carved and poignant filigree
about the air and above the heads of unsuspecting passers-by,
she hovered in full Technicolor over the bleak and disenfranchised
ideas yet to be grasped, bursts of dizzying oxygen but helium-spiced,
sugars, and everything nice, a will-o’-the-wisp who left behind
the scent of salty brine and lavender.
I will have kissed her face in the warm downpours,
brushed snow from her lashes, stood her umbrella in summer sand,
and pondered with her the golden passing of autumn,
every year since I’ve known her.
She writes less and less, prefers instead to hold it in these days,
to let it eat away rather than share the poverty, she’s decided that’s more valuable,
though she occasionally jots off a couplet or two, just for me,
and once a sonnet shared over cocktails and take-out.
Sometimes I sit at the piano and shape chord forms freely in space,
handsome constructions of arched fingers and opposing motions,
search for dissonance though often find harmony,
while she randomly intones beautiful sonorous sounds like words
aimed at the more resonant chambers of the room, her voice round
with a touch of the rasp to alert the world-weary that we are kindred spirit;
her melody shifts at odd intervals and the tempo-free meter allows us to float
in time and heart, in perfect poise aligned without tonic,
we resolve at will, or not at all, the upper partials of our tensions,
we modulate to a better point of view on life, its victories
and more often of late, its sweet despairs, which no one key
can capture, paint, hold or release; how many times we’ve stopped mid-phrase
and have kissed like two insane pretending, without losing the tone nor the shape of our song.
© Chagall 2014
I think we should require
everyone to kiss everyone hello
Yes it would take a very long time
but I really believe we are worth it
© Chagall 2014
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