She passed, the lady
who crocheted scarves
for favorite toys
Stuffed pandas sported
lilacs and greens
snug against cold
muffled happy in sound
wool splendor
Her nieces and nephews
all loved her
lined up like urchins
in top hat and dragging tails
Life cleaves carved
runners in the snow
they fade behind
or loom before
who is certain
in the blur
crinkle of snowfall
a solitary bell
She nods, beckons
Godspeed, good night
clutching her bag of yarns
Chagall 2015
I love Friday nights
I think they deserve
more than their 14%
weekly allotment
Chagall 2015
I have no energy left yet so much to say.
No, that’s not right. I simply have need to say something.
There is no specific content or quantity in mind.
I hope that in describing that need
I’ve said something.
Writing is no longer a viable alternative
for that primal scream I would emit
hurling myself off a rooftop.
Chagall 2015
I watched him
over his shoulder
at first not recognizing
the lines, but then I saw
he was drawing asunder,
which I thought was no
longer allowed.
© Chagall 2015
Just this very moment
the world’s exhausted
its share of meaningful words
I am desperately trying
to salvage the remaining
few that trickle from the
© Chagall 2014
You once danced in perfect dark,
with no eye to discern the grace of form,
nothing shone on passion for Terpsichore,
your body yearned, stark figure on ground, unseen aloft
in space for no one but you, in wait to unveil the inward glow,
before the birth of sight and no one was, there was promenade and cabriole.
© Chagall 2013
Chance, fling, sing, dance,
Prance, wing, sting, romance,
Someday, maybe, anyway,
baby, I’ll say, we’ll see.
Sonnet line-endings I will never use,
Petrarchan, octave and sestet pairing,
so much to gain, ergo plenty to lose,
when poets go astray, lose their bearing.
It’s easy to just settle, stop caring,
take to hypnotics, or just plain old booze,
get caught in sun spots, in solar flaring,
perish in flame before paying the dues.
So I buckle down and get serious,
edit and rewrite, until it’s just right,
like courting a young and elusive Miss,
who smells like lavender, emits sunlight.
Move quickly now, inch in to steal a kiss!
Better yet? Wait till the cover of night.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I do it again,
peel the gold-foil wrapping
from the neck of another
poem.
I extract the cork,
straight-up, briskly,
neatly.
Out of its element,
the poem first takes
small panting breaths.
I ignore it, pretend to be busy,
a séance with Rimbaud,
perhaps a sonnet of vowels.
It develops nose,
emotes terroir,
softens its tannins.
Does a verse and chorus
of Leonard Cohen’s
Hallelujah.
I swirl it and snort it and sip it and swish it and spit it
out and taste the lingering . . .
Berry, chocolate, tobacco, and leather,
hints of pollen and honey,
grand cru.
This sort is rarely a standalone varietal,
usually, rather, the base for a blend.
I lick every drop I see running,
with expert plucks of my tongue.
I sense the bottle is bottomless,
sugary, vintage, a great year for sure.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
The dancers’ marks are spotted,
glow in the dark,
exes on stage,
blue like stars burn hot.
She’s in the back row left,
a second in the recital,
but she’s perfect in her execution,
in expressing the step,
heart, line, and sinker.
Sexy beyond her age.
It’s obvious she’s thought a lot about this dance.
Voguing and stepping, in her own world, a private reverie,
her face caught in stage light, fine boned and captive,
for the moment, timeless.
She bangs the rhythm like I do in my seat,
catching the upbeat and-a two
with a shoulder shrug,
more subtle than hips.
I can convey as much with a nod,
and hold – three – four.
Kiss you on the downbeat, and twirl away in stealth,
leaving you guessing, what the f…
before the bridge.
I’ll go it solo if you are not along for the ride.
Your’re either in on it or out.
At this point in time, I need someone wholly committed.
Someone willing to break from the pack,
do a funky two-step unlike any previously seen,
without regret or self-consciousness,
and revel in the devil-may-care what the hell
any y’all think –
who gives a flying rat’s ass –
as long as we got we, it’s all
oh so absolutely good,
can’t nada be wrong.
Go loco with me baby.
Yell into the abyss with me.
Play pinball, bounce among stars, tilt at worlds,
at windmills, my Dulcinea.
Hold me, love me,
long into the night,
beyond the time when most would think sufficient.
I need long nurturing.
I need to be convinced, not mildly placated.
I need the long haul, the real deal,
the essential, the life dance,
the primal, Eden on the lips,
embraces that never stop, gardens in full bloom, all the time,
marking celestial passing.
I despise aftermath.
I hate interlude.
I just want constant flow, perpetual give and take,
riffing on the now,
the wonder of what’s here, and we in it.
Be me being you be me.
I want to wrap myself in the musk of you,
disappear into oblivion,
like a child prone on the back seat,
at night en route to home from the carnival,
windows rolled turn, to allow night air,
to circulate, while streelamps dance
in the reflection of rear window glass,
and aged melodies play out in AM,
way past midnight, way past my bedtime.
Hold me baby. Be my blanket buddy.
Heard there’s a storm brewing; cuddle with me under cotton sheets
alongside open windows,
while the storm howls,
and the rain blows in.
Young dancer, stay young.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Running away, we outrace the comets,
then rest on our backs, at the southern pole;
stars, concentric orbits, clarions toll:
Life on this planet, as good as it gets.
My love for you hangs in mist, crystalline,
cascades in tickling ripples down your face,
rinses from inside out, the dust, this place.
There is no heaven, nor hell, this serene.
There is no place at all, there’s no bridge back.
I reel, mad dance, awestruck, struck dead, anew,
the last call. We didn’t make it did we?
“No my love, we both died in the attack.”
Cold wild winds blow hard in vain to renew
the calm before the storm, eternally.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 