Alphabet City

I search every lost and found I find,
I’m losing you, founded on loss
upon finding I lose.

Chagall 2019

After years of searching, I have finally discovered myself,
only to find that my brain is now suing me for infringement of patent.

Chagall 2019

In my mind is a rock against which I lean-to
whenever peace is needed. Beyond the open flap
and the rain, from my warm venue I can see
the tops of tall pines visible below in the lightning.

Chagall 2019

The wrinkles in the towel,
the way the sun throws shadows
into the folds of the fabric,
they form a face, a young woman smiles shyly,
her left cheek emblazoned in light,
so real that even when the towel is gone,
she is still there

I see her everywhere now, in stone and wood,
in dense tree canopies, upon the lake’s ripples,
(though less so in clouds)

The ground of all that is,
is the tracing of her

She is implicit in every niche,
I sense her with every breath

Perhaps she is the dark void behind me
that I can now trust

Or the blinding not knowing before me
I await

Adoration at first sight,
the scent of bougainvillea
releases when trampled underfoot
by the garden’s dancers

She appears in twilight
when daylight fines to mist,
stark, aglow amid flowery vines
she gracefully – playfully – performs her plié

I am but imagined myself, a pile of folds
in sunlight disguised, shadows configured
to confound, to conjure sentient impression,
so real that even when I am gone,
she is still here

Chagall 2019

I have decided to eat fewer homemade donuts,
therefore I will need to make fewer batches,
thereby saving me time.

Chagall 2019

There are chords my guitar has never played,
yet is perfectly capable of doing so.

Chagall 2019

She said, “I really like music,
I’m even considering getting a tattoo.”

Chagall 2019

He smacked the turntable, the needle tracked
its scratch deep across the vinyl, over the club’s speakers –
amplified –  it sounded like a buzzsaw whipping through the center of the building

What have you guys been smoking?
he screamed

I leaned over and offered “…or not,
sounds more like it to me.”

Chagall 2019

All vices involve
a tickle

Chagall 2019

If you have to remove the oblongata,
if you really gotta, I told the doctor
just the other day, then do it, I know
you’re gonna do it, so do it already
if you gotta

Siamo d’accordo,
Godspeed, till nerve messages
pass this way again; the road least travelled

I vow: no poems left behind,
every dead synapse and lost memory
is a note-to-self to write an ode,
construct a new lyric, find another vein

O’ what a lode we tap in this web we weave-o,
out, out, you momentary flickers, shadows thrown by footlights

I remember when once we were coy,
rarely beguiled as such since

And to think I almost thought that some mention of me
would make sense here

I would throw it all away for the right sway
in time, long glides on spongy floors, all of our limbs forsaken
in little boxes of meter

And then what?
Work with me to isolate the desperation of that last question
And now what?

One cannot traipse where there is no floor,
or so the Buddha in me appears to want to emphasize,
despite being appropriately hoofed and choreographed

One can always mention the lack of any making
as a statement confirming some making, if only
by its meandering self-reference

Once I juggled a galaxy, the details way too small and infinitely numbered
to describe in the space we are allotted here

And so you must trust me – create a fair coin-toss
without ever having met me

What say you – heads or tails?

Chagall 2019