I need to get out,
I’ll miss all the butterflies!
This their final day.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
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I’m addicted to cha-ching,
it can get you anything,
but love – that’s no epiphany.
Works wonders though at Tiffany!
© Chicheme, 2013
She says it’s way too early,
this time of year for warblers,
kinglets and tanagers too.
Ornithology challenged
(I know little about little birds):
What then is this time good for?
I shouted out from the crowd.
Despite the many faces,
drawn about her in the park,
she is prompt and direct with response:
It’s that season for fine young ladies,
to sight those special and rare
ducks like the Cinnamon Teal,
birds like the Black-Tailed Godwit.
With that she puffed her plumage,
I turned to exhibit my wingbar,
snapped at a mayfly there in the air,
and lifted off in glorious flight.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Corners, sides, are easy to find,
they’re machine cut to bound the frame,
a space for vision and hearing,
to romp, to roam: proscenium.
I touch with all that I have now,
electric expanses of skin,
orient me to creation,
this is my time, this is my place.
Moments, knurled, from a jigsaw cut,
demand attention to pattern,
peculiar shades at their borders,
whisper to hint, here’s how we fit.
And so, a single piece missing,
I choose not to search for it yet.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
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
I was born, the fifties, New York City,
though I wish I’d grown up in a small town,
near a stream perhaps, water racing down,
I’d embrace that life with alacrity.
I’m sure though I’d display tenacity,
right after donning high school’s cap and gown,
to move north to the urban sprawl or drown,
bright lights appeal to my insanity.
They’d chew me up, innocent from the grotto,
break me down, leave me sad and despondent,
unable to cope, keep up with the pace.
No, better to have grown in the ghetto,
a six-story walk-up, a tenement,
nothing to sacrifice, no loss of grace.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Claire de Lune cleaves a spirit’s gap in me,
a place for the melody to revolve,
for the light to gain in intensity.
Stella by Starlight leaves me on rooftops,
to overlook lit but distant bridges,
that lead to grand and eloquent dreamers.
The memory of you is deceiving,
provides me a choice, front-row-center seat,
to a symphony that’s best unwritten.
© Carlos Chagall
I told her I had a couple of doughs
that had been rising for most of the day.
Come back with me, what’s the worst could happen?
A slice of great homemade pizza, some wine?
OK, maybe a kiss, or two, or three.
I make a fantastic marinara.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
She said her name was Dominga Samba,
a Castilian, her family went way back,
the sixth century, Kingdom of León,
after the Romans, the time of the Moors.
She spoke this lispy, crazy Portuguese,
sprinkled with what she called Mozarabic.
I mainly listened to her eyes and lips,
and the tight geometry of her curves.
She danced to pachanga like a Cuban,
Galician spirits moved her, she swooned,
head thrown back, knees akimbo, she’d mambo,
son montuno, like the natives used to.
She’d rise, make love astride like a goddess,
hypnotic, offbeat lunges, then circles,
lightly, hovering, just barely touching,
interlocked rhythms, deep and full glides home.
She was rapping time on my cencerro,
would have made Arsenio Rodriquez proud.
I think of her now almost every night,
she has since moved back to Salamanca.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I’m scheduled to die on this gorgeous day,
the window open, cool breeze, blown curtain,
knowing the morning’s about to begin,
life in and out, crossing paths on the way.
So much poetry that I’ve yet to say,
so many places that I’ve never been,
encircled there by sobbing next of kin,
the priest has just arrived, it’s time to pray.
I stop them before the sign of the cross,
“Today is absolutely not my time,
too much sunshine.” So I ask them to leave.
I shower, I shave, I brush, and I floss,
I dance a jitterbug, compose a rhyme,
jot the names of those not showing to grieve.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 