Use the ennui of prolonged aspiration
as the impetus to finally break through
think plainly,
speak plainly,
write plainly,
play plainly
Chagall 2020
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Watch yourself – curve ahead,
each step random unplanned,
plenty of mud to step in
yet, you bet
A short skip over the gap
and we’re on our way,
careful – it’s a steep hill down
We kick up dirt and gravel
On level ground, grass worn thin,
thick privet all around, a simple maze
meant to divert, not baffle
Let us proceed
A simple right-left
and we’re through
Chagall 2020
Photo by Andru00e9 Cook on Pexels.com
butterflies upon stalks of rye grass,
vibrant, wag their wings
impatiens children tap their petals
open-and-shut
a slow flutter
(with little risk
of sudden snow flurry)
deep in the heart of summer
amid merry smells, sights
sad sounds
a calliope razed to the ground here,
but its lilt is always on lips, melodious whistles,
bounce low, ride high, carousel horses
go giddy up and around
Chagall 2020
she said
I need a heavy rain right now
a deluge now and then
does the trick
make a large boat,
make it right
this time take
one of everything
Chagall 2020
I like it when the thicket and the trees grow over,
my neighbors hidden from view as I from them
It’s cozy in my private garden,
greener somehow, more lush
Above me my patch of sky
as sure as that below is ground
I easily conceive of heaven here
alone behind these secluding privets
A very specific timelessness
Blessed is the rare glimpse of my neighbor’s light
or the sound of her voice soft from behind the overgrowth
A stone’s throw away
as the crow flies
To find me I lose me, I gather up
to pick up the strewn-about pieces
At night when I peer up
I am privy to all constellations
Once I named one
after you
If I were to fall endlessly in space on my back
I would perish with a forever expanding view
of receding patterns of star fields
before me
a panoply
of eternal burning objects
overhead
Chagall 2020
inside my head
I call out to
the other inside
her head
I sense
her there
without words
as colors do
we blend to
new meaning
in a way only
felt, sensed
we are as children
at frolic on sand
laughing in waves
that roll to shore
hand in hand we glide
on our heels downhill
kicking up pebbles
and dust in our braking
around curves and
squared corners
till full bore
in open field
I scream out to
the other outside
never let go
hold tight
Chagall 2020
Photo by Martin Lopez on Pexels.com
I have not read accounts about forest trees falling,
there is no witness who attests to a felling
but I have seen – have heard – a fall,
the snap, a moment of silence, then the oceanic rush of sound
as the upper-half of the tree crashes through the canopy freefalling
to the final percussive thud, you can feel it hit the ground
and resonate deep bass, then silence again briefly that begets a steady hum
a hymn: new light through the new gap in the landscape
where fluttery insects and dust-motes swirl merrily in backlit haze,
the felled wood, a cacophony of debris that appears to be
hundreds of uprooted miniature bonsai trees
that call from the forest floor
trees only sometimes fall
when no one is around
Chagall 2020
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com
Bird right outside the window
keeps repeating how bobby was really cheap
but there is no bobby in the story, let alone
one who would not pay her way – no way!
– a rhythm now stuck in my head
It’s a brighter color than your song is loud
(peek in on the wire behind the breeze,
I once was startled by sunlight suddenly glanced there
amid triangles of lush land and polished mirrors of blue sky)
All upside down
felled by the rapids, a rush
on foam newly diverted and funneled by tight banks
that now etch these novel swerves that move me along the run to the rise
where the deeper swift water flows from thereon downhill for many miles
through trees over polished stones to a break where a dwarf eddy turns
like a slow screw in the flue of a warm draft, so humid,
mist so moist it clings to the brow just by its passing
These are the largest fronds
I have ever been
under…
Magical figures so real at the edges, beautiful primal greens,
striate lush life throbs photocells, clung-to tightly until relinquished,
solar caresses bestowed by the day
Life is sweet invisible disturbance – indivisible distraction streaked with time
flavored of salted water, the windblown in from the coast
settled upon dusty planks
We spill lime
upon which we dance
Tonight – this moonless night,
hear the waves more than see them!
Hear the water joyously rush shore
but only imagine the warm froth of that joy
as there is not enough light
to illuminate it for you
at this time
But as a sound
it cascades lusciously
to tickle the ear
over and over
(I drift too close to the rock
and am diverted by a chime on a buoy
in the harbor fog)
Chagall 2020
I lay walking stones in the Garden,
knowing we will someday have to cross it
The moss grows in the seams to blend them
perfectly in: miniscopic canopies
Life at times
seemingly so far away
I once knew a stoner who posited
that we were equidistant between all things
at all scales
Where we lie
is where the octave is
We see that receding
as coming to us
All of the flowers all wrong
all of the time
Once on the prow of a boat
I was immersed in salt briny wind
so lovely and strong
we blew timeless
and I dove in
even though I can’t swim
here now at the 4-way stop
of the Garden’s pavers
Chagall 2020
Alphabet City 