I am a time traveler –
doubt me?
I travel backwards in time
with each regret and every tear
of nostalgia
Anticipation, anxiety, angst
all the “A” words (okay, and Dread too)
is me time-tripping, future to now and back again
But I
digress
Now
where was I?
© Chagall 2014
Some seeds display
erratic behavior
rather inconsistency
in their rate of sprout
with respect to time –
how long – and volume –
how many, more specifically
the percentage coming through
I treat such seeds with mild disdain
jostling their incubators and
peat pellet packs, perturbations
surely their style, nothing regular
about the routine I provide, rotating
to sun, shade to moist, dry
to mist, drench to relaxed bouts
on cedar planks, cool porches after
hot days, the deck still radiant with heat
photons captured their pulse eager
to tell of where they’ve been, places
they hope to see
The seeds, perhaps seedlings now, asleep atop this cooling bed
dream on behalf of light emanating underneath as heat
Into the earth on a vision quest
for hydrogen-oxygen-carbon – even more sunlight
color minerals, trace elements, the spectrum
proxy for the union of unnamed things
Inconceivably there are no more miles for the light to travel,
if I have not made my point clear, it’s traveled all of the miles
of distance that exist
So it must assemble in wave, in halos about the drop-off so sheer
without sign of bottom, more surrender than plummet, the last call for shadows
in a world of no sound though I imagine that the shriek of gravity is deafening
beyond here there are no more walls
it’s certainly not the place nor time
for hand puppets though that certainly would be ballsy
Hop atop with me, ride the sunspot madly
blindly, dash with me into the light
we shall make new stems and leaves together!
© Chagall 2014
Brutal honesty
Truth lies outside even that
Spring could do better
© Chagall 2014
The poem starts a place without word
outside the hourglass
The sound is an outburst (exclamation!)
whether a howl is uncertain, more likely a caw
Brains pretend to know, but they don’t
sadly at perch too high perhaps
It’s the last flight out in search
of reconnaissance stalled on the tarmac
On a high reef
or a low arete
In certain dreams I spiral down
sharp winding roads without guard rail
where perilous switchbacks cause me to dangle
precariously close to then over the edge
perennially in descent but how decent of you
to drop by thank you I would kiss you yet . . .
chances are odds are
merely an end to a means to an end
© Chagall 2014
Alphabet City 