Satellite images caught in transmission
between heaven and earth,
frozen in wave,
convey no story, carry no sound,
spark no what-if.
Remember all those trees
that fell in the forest
when no one was there;
implore them please, to reprise their descent.
Metaphysical monologues by a fallen elder,
their white flowers peek through violet berries,
leave us wiser, if unaware.
Light sometimes does not
saturate the silver of the film
sufficiently to graph the photo.
I scream in dreams
make no sound,
I strive to clear my mind,
but fixate instead on that thought.
I make silver dollars disappear,
yet have not perfected the reappearance of those
from behind the ears of my passers-by.
Told him point-blank,
still drew blank stares,
wrote blank checks
for ideas conceived on a blank canvas,
blanked out from lack of oxygen
running to escape from blanks shot in the dark,
filled in the blanks,
a five letter word for hope,
blank, blank, blank, blank, H.
Like a foreign language dubbed flick,
my words don’t sync out of mouth up line my move, now not but before.
That’s right, you heard me correctly.
My uncle used to make his thumb disappear,
just the tip, from the knuckle up.
I place warm kisses along the fine line
of a spectral cheekbone,
expecting cold lips in return,
somehow better than nothing at all.
Premature emancipation? Call me
for freedoms lasting longer than four hours.
I freeze dry my savored moments
add water at a later date,
whenever I need what was once, again.
I prolong the ephemeral,
reconstitute the insoluble,
permeate the tightly bound.
Sentience interrupts us,
awareness deludes,
covers close sharply on our skulls,
breaking our necks repeatedly.
I breathe through gills underwater,
my eyes fill with cold saline,
miles of ocean pressure over my head,
the sky beyond,
images caught there frozen.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 