Alphabet City

she dances to Take 5
in 4/4 time while I spin
her hour glass

Brubeck glances
furtively up from the keys

black and white
like the cookies
not the people

in the high registers I find my night chills
solemn intervals, visceral melodies, the highball
glass forever a-tinkle
with ice

crunching down on
ice

gnawing, hoping
pining, swaying

watch her bounce a bit
her bottom bulbous

left hand stroll through the bass – or a standup slap-thumb
to drive a beat, walk the chromatic path up a thigh,
down a lane, to and fro, and Dave just keeps groovin’
in and out 5/4

Chagall 2020

I left there then
thinking life here
was passing me by,
and now it does, and
so it has

Chagall 2020

I wish I had loved you
and been loved by you
more

Chagall 2020

never pass on a pancake
mop up some syrup and put it in your pocket
snack on it later in the day
perhaps after vespers

Chagall 2020

All would wait till the car braked at the end of the path to turn,
before they stopped waving, but not me. I would run to my room and cry
for having not seen the red tail-lights.

Chagall 2020

I’m not looking for a writer
so much as I am a reader, and I’ll know
by what you write

In your hands, at the behest of your mind,
via the grace of God, lies potential timelessness

Fingers that hold a pen or shape a chord
can reign immortal in a moment

Count off…

Chagall 2020

take me aslant,
atilt with your words

show me faraway places

transcend time
with tense

dance through
all the wonder
you want me
to know

sing
with your faeries
nimbly

don’t detour
from that heart

Chagall 2020

whenever I hear jets overhead
I am fearful

the rumble in streets is more
like a roar

I am humbled by birdsong,
let there forever God be birdsong

Chagall 2020

you can never craft a winning message
without first understanding
and empathizing fully
with both sides
of the story

Chagall 2020

prose is
always a poem

so they say

Chagall 2020