I hate when they ask
you to write your own obit.
Sure, get me to do your dirty work,
rub my own nose in it
while I’m at it!
I will answer a different question,
rewrite the game, beat a different drum.
Instead of what I did,
I will enumerate all that I did not,
publish that as a logia of anthos.
My final wish?
To be cremated, then reassembled.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I have a number of wonderful binders –
a half-page green
marble com-
position, wide-rule;
a handmade leather
sketchbook unlined
from High Peak Craft, Tucson, Arizona, complete
with a leather loop to tie around
a post, to tassel shut;
a traditional 5-
subject $2.59
college-rule
with pocketed dividers,
perforated pages
– to name a few, in which I collect,
scribe and pray.
I occasionally doodle en obscura,
white space
I cordon off, masterful strokes,
black felt-tip markings, marginalia
that I intend to evolve someday.
Snippets, idea-ettes,
need water, vigorous nurturing
to imbue them with form.
Each one on their own not much,
but collectively a definitive assortment
of their own reckoning.
The words concise, intentionally imprecise,
neatly contained in inches, blocks sized
two by two, or four by four,
like so many
synapse
whistling
a happy tune
along
the
dusty
trail.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 