Alphabet City

hashmarks of yearly calendars,
each of those contains a December passed

and You’ve got one more Spring
in your step

a last strand
of violet Bougainvillea

I pray a staircase
of those remain

and one final Fall
long deferred till
100 years and more
of Happiness my Friend
under a cascade of beautiful
burnt umber Leaves

may Your Winter be a time for birth
and Stars ere ultimate rebirth;
a season for crystalline Moonlight

Summer ripe with heady haunting aroma,
heat beating deep, the Sun
at it’s best

Your footprints never vanishing
from along the wet sands of the coastline

Chagall 2020

There, there.
Come, come now.
We find out
what’s what
about who’s who
in due time

Here, here!
Oye, oye!
Man, oh man!
Do we ever

Then
bye-bye
ta-ta
ciao-ciao
bay-bay

Chagall 2020

how much oil does a lamp need
to burn itself out?

how many hours do we live?

how much rain can a field absorb
before it drowns all its seedlings?

how much light left to read?

how much wind is required
to fell sand castles?

how much water in a wave?

how many thrusts can a spirit withstand
before it deflates and withers?

how much love can a heart hold?

just so much,
so many

Chagall 2020

the day after the party,
when everyone is gone,
I try to hear the voices
left behind trapped in the wood,
pretend to see graceful forms
yet move about the grass

the breeze is cooler,
the sun more wane

will yesterday
ever come again?

odd how aroma lingers
while sights and sounds
and the touch of hands
disappear

I inhale deeply to savor
this real relic of what was,
and decide to forego exhalation

Chagall 2020

small chickadee on the very corner of my roof,
where east and west meet north and south,
head thrown back, full throated with song,
in the downpour of a sun-shower

Carlos 2020

art about the making of art
is not as compelling as art
as art is

yet life about life
is love

Chagall 2020

I know it’s trite to ponder
is it real or a dream,
a well-worn writer’s device,
this question of whether or not

the loss of self so profound
that one has to wonder and
wander about, the stuff on which
it is founded and grounded

wisps abound,
images fleet, hinting,
leave me melancholy,
wanting

so many symbols
so real

I never agreed to
be a part of any
equation

please let me live
in my favorite space
with my daily routine,
my mundane happiness,
these trivial concerns
of mine, my easily
begotten
joy

allow me to be
simply small

irrelevant

to anyone
but a few

and most of all
grant the children,
the babies born today,
peace in their time

Chagall 2020

sight no longer comes effortlessly

I can feel my eyes, the effort they make to draw
in the light, to sketch the world about me

like liquid through a straw
the photons pulse my optic nerve

purple – this way!
orange – over here…

upside down I turn myself
correct side up

happier
inverted
happier

ceiling moldings are curbs
and chandeliers are art-deco tables
we sit around, seated on ceiling tiles

above us only carpet,
empty shoes
that defy
gravity

stepping from window ledges
we float airily up
to our deaths

vision saturates my brain
like a sponge drinks water

I am all things sensuous
and sensual

I see
therefore I am

Chagall 2020

It transcends profession, race, gender, and nation

A most profound heartbreak
concerning another being

Crime against sentience, existence,
tender life

Chagall 2020

I am torn between two topics today,
how to encase the eternity of morning, or a diatribe
on those who would dance on yesterday’s ashes and broken glass

But perhaps they are one and the same,
a duality of wonder and hate,
the absence of the other
in the other

the promise of life
the negation of promise

celebration that there is mourning
disconsolation over inhumanity

the blurring of the outline of being
human

Me? I still breathe in the sun, the early breeze,
and cry over birdsong that lilts from the trees,
I rejoice in the infinite shades of greens
that God has bestowed on my eyes,
the blues on my ears,
salt on my tongue,
warmth upon skin

…and I will lie down in heady fields of lavender
when I die, my face to the sky, tickled orange by tiny ladybugs,
rather than be consumed by flame

Chagall 2020