… views of Lower Manhattan, glimpsed from an apartment window, a cab, or a stupor.
… romantic interludes where anything minty had a starring role.
… Saturdays of the top 10 years of my top 10 lives.
… best aerial views in dreams where I hover at low altitudes, lucid, just above treetops.
… lies I wield to convince you that I care.
… things I will say to cause you to regret our ever having met.
… ways I will subvert the very fabric of your culture.
© Carlos Chagall, April 2013
Outside Cafe Wha,
stood four electric ladies,
boss, fly, curled, smokin’.
© Chicheme, April 2013
Says here you have angst,
yet you are so poorly coiffed.
What’s up with that, hmm?
© Carlos Chagall, April 2013
Synapse fire and shake my mind, a glimpse,
freefall back to the planet, from a point
outside the box, so far above the edge;
hard belly-flop in a tow-away zone,
to a four-way stop where nothing proceeds
but deferring the right of way. Tremors.
Weave a web, fine mesh to snare and account
for the accelerated particle.
An ellipsis, me thinketh, so therefore
I amethyst. They cart Descartes away
in a pied balloon; a partly cloudy,
shroudy day in Turin. Panthers on prowls,
the pilgrimage will not be televised.
Bells toll, believers stomped in steeple chase.
Spires collapse, prayers rise, initiates
eat mutton, served on stale wafers, revel,
pass on the wine, and the cup remains full.
The cloaked celebrant, dismayed, with long gulps,
hemoglobin, hemagoblin, deep thirst,
charges his own cells, iron, eons rich.
The papal bull charges the red cape.
Horns entangle with confused flourish.
One graceful matador, a dancer,
on dry dirt, eros, stands lean, relaxed,
sinew throbbing with the ache, rhythm,
at the center of the stadium,
faintly acknowledges the roar,
the receding hurrah. The bull,
with a quick pivot, inertia,
takes advantage of this vain lapse,
plunges deep, twists, plunges again.
The crowd, first hushed, is delighted.
you say goodbye, while I say halo.
Brahmins dine on Raman,
exhale wisps, catharsis.
Buttery Buddhas want
dietary fiber,
are flatulent and so
relieve themselves in bursts,
smelling like sandalwood.
Mongols slaughter llamas;
they’re skilled in exile.
I Ching, art of war,
some tze. To be or
not to be, that is
the Szechuan.
(A hand breaks through
the top layers,
silky compost,
two fingers,
wrist pronate,
flash a V:
Victory.)
© Chagall, 2013
Faster than Peter,
past acacia and carob,
I ran to the tomb.
We sang, we danced,
embraced and wept,
jumped up and down, cried out.
Our voices echoed:
the chamber there was empty
past the low doorway.
Alone in the damp,
except for our friend’s garments;
his scent was still there.
I ran past Mary,
leaving the rich man’s garden;
Arimathean
sweet hawthorn kindled
the fires of Golgotha,
from the day before.
Past olive, almond,
apricot, pine, turpentine,
I ran to tell them.
© Carlos Chagall, Easter Sunday, 2013
The long taper of the fisherman
carves graceful serpents in the air,
undulates overhead, uncoils,
lays his leader down on the eddy.
The coachman’s hackle catches fine droplets,
sprays from the crisp rush,
reachers for the crest,
slow dancers, lurid with deep thrusts,
small surfers on the foam, riders on the scree.
A rainbow in the fast lane least traveled,
in the underwater silence,
flexes rudders in a rush to the mar
in the clarity of the surface. In an instant
the hook barb sets into the soft palette ridge. There!
An electron on a wire, taut signals, no slack.
A tug on the line between thumb and index, yanks.
The rainbow, slick and wet, the surface of glycerin bubbles,
shocked by sunlight,
the maddened roar of the pool,
regrets the prior impulse,
in a graceful arc, in forbidden air,
catches a glimpse below
of grateful free rainbows,
defies and reasserts its fate, re-submerges,
running out the line, but jerked back hard
with the whirring intake of reel.
In a froth of its own making, frenzied oxygenation,
the rainbow abandons its own locomotion,
to the small plummet of a fall that marks a carry in the forest beside the stream.
A steep slide to a horizontal glide, and is wrenched high in the air.
Too high, too hot.
Indigo.
Violent violets.
Brush smears on cloudless skies,
peek through the tops of the old white pines
that can still be found here.
At the apogee, there is no tension.
No tug.
And the rainbow is weightless.
Flying,
free
fall
back
to the planet.
Hits hard on the surface,
for a moment
half in,
half out.
Descent buoyant to rest.
Finally, silent and spent.
Immersed in cool waters, on the soft polished stones
at the bottom.
The run of the stream is halted:
froze.
Time:
still pulses.
Caws of large birds startle the silence,
with reedy bleats
to mock the passing.
For the moment.
At least for now.
Till then.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Eclipse. “… what they’ve done,”
holy sound; black veil. Alpha,
omega; all time
at one with all: one.
This time, this triduum: now
burst, cry into light.
Baskets filled with food,
sun-soaked altar rail. Sweet breads,
bitters, ascension.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
In dreams I hover lucid at low altitude, just above treetops. © Carlos Chagall, 2013
What are you saying?
Crap coming out of your mouth.
Repeat after me:
Mellifluously.
“My lip fluid flees.”
No, no way that’s it.
“My limbs filled with fleas.”
Are your ears okay?
“My foot fell asleep.”
You’re pulling my leg, right?
“My liver’s diseased?”
You are a pisser.
“My life flew away.”
Bueno! Much better.
“My loves flee easy.”
Now you are talking!
“Miles ‘fore I sleep.”
“Please just let me be.”
“Just let me scream now.”
“Throat to head, just rip.”
“Mellifluously.”
Yes, now you got it.
“Now your turn. Repeat:
Expose brain to sky.”
Expository.
“No way Carlito.”
Exponentially.
“You’re growing on me.”
Expeditiously.
“Faster, good, faster.”
Ex-explosively.
“Not fair to breathe twice.”
Expletive delete?
“That’s correct. Shitty.”
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
How was I to know
you were just some avatar,
HTML embedded,
creeping along there
on the dim edges,
the ghetto of my iPad,
hawking Dom like some Don while
sniffing Elmer’s Glue,
re-tweeting real deals,
’cause you’ve got none of your own?
“I’m a business … man!” bullshit.
Sierra Leone.
We get it. You heard the jam,
copped a line and made it your brand.
Sells in small vials,
little viles, small viri
to infect, perfect all who
follow to follow.
The bizarre bazaar. Yowza!
zip-a-dee-doo-dah-Zumba.
Dear dead matador,
The carnival crews are happy
to pitch you your own three rings,
where you would hold sway.
Act now, don’t delay.
Cease to decease, one more day.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 