Tag Archive: Business


Little Antsy

chagall backdrop

There’s no one for me who quite matches up,
the moons have ceased to align for a while.

There’s no one who can catch me then keep up,
they wax when I wane, they rock when I roll.

I can guess the card almost every time,
didn’t you just pull that from up your sleeve?

Stone with me, share blankets under moonlight,
tell me the stars are not that far away.

Let’s get off the grid, shoot them all the bird,
witness each full moon on the calendar.

Instead I’m surrounded by non dreamers,
those who are deluded by what is real.

Son-of-a-bitching-moronic-buzz-kills,
pissing on my clouds, stinking up heaven.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Short Easy Flight

Throwing out ballast to rise, near dusk,
light air and low flame,
up-draft we go!

Nice little buckle, a trade-wind slap,
but we straight right-up, real fast or we topple.

In the vertical slow chugging puff,
on low winds, poooffft we slow down,

the gondola pendulums,
aerial inertia.

Sometimes I just hold sway,
drop anchors, tie a taut-line,
buoyant, and hover there over
forever, where you are.

Pretty much every day.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

It’s Just Me, Friday Night

I really can’t be more polite than this,
but I think I can be more direct.

Do what you do,
don’t stop now.

Those electric blue dragonflies
appear to be following.

Cascade baby,
whiz by your chin like a high fade.

Zip the mitt,
pop-pop the web.

Two and ohnooooo!

Sometimes I crack myself – pour and flow, keep my sunny side – up.

Slow riders on quick dreamscapes
flutter-by like Ali in Zaire.

Tight wire, but a thick rope,
looks like somebody knew their knots.

Love you, blow you kisses,
bring you moons, safe harbor-lights.

I love the spaces you carve when you dance,
a little shoulder shake.

Birds singing over Harlem, in free-fall,
like a lullaby.

We’re going bye-bye baby,
dress nice, smell something good,
and I’ll do the same, pressed tight,
stinging like a-bee-a-back-beat-jab,
simple cymbals, rope-a-dopamine,
to calm the jitters, feet
all tangled up but then . . .

I glide –
oh yes!
and then I slide –
tada!

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

At The Drive-In

We all know someone
who knew someone
who was once “once bitten, twice burned,”
no three-charm, went down,
way down, for the count.

Daffodil daze,
long ago summer,
when we’d samba soft,
swept an upstate girl,
who smelled like lemon,
cloudy sweet, beechnut,
she glided on sand.

We’d kiss, I’d open my eyes before she,
it just never failed – surprised she
would smile, seeing me
again for the only time.

Outside Vails Mills,
there’s a drive-in
long closed,
used to show Cinemascope,
where girls in pink cashmere
took my breath away
long before intermission,
and again when the credits ran.

Cars pulling through the gate,
2 tickets and sodas in hand,
waves of mosquito white-light
from the projection booth,
color-soaked 2D flickers,
cheap speaker hooked
there on the window rolled down,
at the very start,
a Saturday night picture show.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Division By Zero

So, how many people are there on the planet?
A quick search reveals there are five
point five billion.

With my handy pocket calculator,
powered by the sun, by the way,
I figure this is two to the thirty-
second power,
give or take a power.

I record my voice, I hum an A, four hundred
forty Hertz,
pure tone that I bounce to a second
track, so now there’s two of me.

I repeat, there’s four of me, again, there’s eight, for
thirty two times, give or take
a power, until
I achieve a chorus of me,
numbering five
point five billion.

I sit there under headphones,
in perfect surround sound,
the volume turned way up.

I am all that there is.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Past Curfew

I imagine I’m holding him again,
new born, swaddled, miniature holy man,

in hospital blanket, white wool skull cap.
He fits in one hand neatly.  I hold him

carefully; unearthed, rare, fragile relic.
Now he averts the fullness of my hug,

glancing embraces until the next time,
and the time after that, until no more.

The farthest light reaches me now from then.
I go to sleep knowing he won’t be home.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Synapse fire and shake my mind, a glimpse,
freefall back to the planet, from a point
outside the box, so far above the edge;
hard belly-flop in a tow-away zone,
to a four-way stop where nothing proceeds
but deferring the right of way. Tremors.

Weave a web, fine mesh to snare and account
for the accelerated particle.

An ellipsis, me thinketh, so therefore
I amethyst. They cart Descartes away
in a pied balloon; a partly cloudy,
shroudy day in Turin. Panthers on prowls,

the pilgrimage will not be televised.
Bells toll, believers stomped in steeple chase.
Spires collapse, prayers rise, initiates
eat mutton, served on stale wafers, revel,
pass on the wine, and the cup remains full.
The cloaked celebrant, dismayed, with long gulps,
hemoglobin, hemagoblin, deep thirst,
charges his own cells, iron, eons rich.

The papal bull charges the red cape.
Horns entangle with confused flourish.
One graceful matador, a dancer,
on dry dirt, eros, stands lean, relaxed,
sinew throbbing with the ache, rhythm,
at the center of the stadium,

faintly acknowledges the roar,
the receding hurrah. The bull,
with a quick pivot, inertia,
takes advantage of this vain lapse,
plunges deep, twists, plunges again.
The crowd, first hushed, is delighted.

you say goodbye, while I say halo.

Brahmins dine on Raman,
exhale wisps, catharsis.
Buttery Buddhas want
dietary fiber,
are flatulent and so
relieve themselves in bursts,
smelling like sandalwood.
Mongols slaughter llamas;
they’re skilled in exile.

I Ching, art of war,
some tze. To be or
not to be, that is
the Szechuan.

(A hand breaks through
the top layers,
silky compost,
two fingers,
wrist pronate,
flash a V:
Victory.)

© Chagall, 2013