Alphabet City

prose is
always a poem

so they say

Chagall 2020

When I broke the mirror, she screamed out
Oh my God, 7 years bad luck!

Knowing a bargain when I see one, I yelled
I’ll take it!

Chagall 2020

I lit a candle
ever since I had heard

The memory is etched deep
having seen

Reach out; touch

The aroma is an odd banquet
of salt and lavender sweat

One grows accustomed
to the taste of one’s own mouth

Over time

Chagall 2020

last night in a trance while listening to rain
my vision ceded to the pretense of other, my body’s form
dissolved to blend into expanse so vast that it had to be me

I gleaned it possible to live for thousands of years

an ancient Sumerian king knew that at 50 years old
he was merely 1% of the way through

it is a matter of expectation,
the believing mind commands the body to obey,
and so unlocks the oldest rooms

what would you do with the time,
would you squander it as now,
would you remember those who perished
in past millennia, would you cry?

will you still have it in you
to blow out all of the candles?

Chagall 2020

I run my eyes over the shape of the forest
and see nothing

Till I hold still
and see all

Chagall 2020

the day’s light lessens its grip on the upper limbs,
the topmost leaves hold fast to the gold

darkness comes, God as an artist with charcoal in hand
compelled to shade all the seeable surface

rough, gouged trunks of trees smoothed black

morning arrives, pollock gone mad
splashed buckets of yellow
and sky-blue

Chagall 2020

Life is so fragile
She seized zesting citrus rind
Making madeleines

Chagall 2020

the curve of her body
reclined on the settee
late morning light

the sharp intake of breath that incites
reason to live

Chagall 2019

without light
to help us discern
shape and design

we perish
believing ourselves
to be amorphous being

existence
without boundary:
all feel

Chagall 2020

We are ensnarled in a foldaway bed
once again head upside-down in the wall
flat and dark, dank, claustrophobic for sure

We’ve nothing to push against, hold onto,
no fulcrum or lever, only God now

Look down, point your ear our way

Hear our prayer

Chagall 2020