Alphabet City

I press my ear to the air
sooner the ground, above 
where whispers frolic, flit really 
chaotic, hissed diphthongs,
there on the breeze there's
none of that, this I can promise,
nothing but clear night
to hold us aloft

if I fall backwards
from this perch
I shall pretend I 
ascend from the moon
of yon planet,
and thus will be spared,
I'll float airily up
ne'er to hit ground

at least this time around

You reach down to cradle me,
pull me up and return me, and 
I am bathed 
in your outstretched colors

Now, once again
you sing
let us entertain
the wind

But I do not fall,
nor do you,
nor have we fallen,
yet

In echelon we carve
cursive sky, paths that
we scarcely recall, nuance
on the turns a matter
of style crafted over eons
in the updrafts

At the apex 
where there is no sound,
one begins

cc: Chagall 2021

I see things that are here
as ably as I see 
those things that are not

cc: Chagall 2021

Once, I was enthralled by full-moons,
the epic pie in the sky smiling down,
so bright, this night

But now I know it is the waxing
that tickles me, the build-up, the promise,
the Coming

The countdown to the epic pie
is so many more nights of hope,
anticipation, than just the One

I am not a fan of the waning

cc: Chagall 2021

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.

cc: Chagall 2021/2013

1
Those with their head up their ass, 
must have a load on their mind

2
She agreed to eat all of the berries
when I told her that not all from the bush 
make their way back to the house

3
The wild berries have overtaken
the domestic berries, while in-between
...something that's neither

cc: Chagall 2021

next time 
I come back
I'll do better

cc: Chagall 2021

she sews oh, so slow,
her seams, it seems,
are flawless

on a treadle she pedals
her way, stitches together 
dreams

beautiful melodies of love
on her Singer

she once put a name-tag for me
in every sock, one summer I left

there's the very feint image - 
an apricot pit's striation in the varnish
- she'd left one atop the machine to dry
on a sunny day

such was her habit
for starting new houseplants

I look for her in every window,
she watching the new world go by,
small paring knife in hand,
a piece of stone fruit

a wave

(G Series, Model 66, part of a shipment of 50,000 sewing machines
allotted to retailers on June 22, 1910)

cc: Chagall 2021

why don't roof-eaves come pre-configured
with bird homes and baths?

well-crafted, nothing where 
the bird (or the water) might breach the eave,
end up inside your home

...and not necessarily every eave

cc: Chagall 2021