Canada | Alphabet City

Tag Archive: Canada

Here’s What I’ll Do If I Am Elected

Filed under: Poetry — 4 Comments

July 5, 2013

chagall backdrop
Assume that there are two and a half
million military personnel
in the U.S. forces.

Canada’s border is fifty-five hundred miles,
Mexico’s roughly two thousand,
the general coastline about thirteen thousand.

Let’s say then twenty thousand miles
for one trip around the perimeter
of our great country,
just to make this easy.

I ask a local seven-year old,
who advises me that there are five
thousand two hundred and eighty feet
in a mile

So in total that’s one hundred and five million
six hundred thousand feet
around these United States.

So here’s my plan:
Let’s bring all of the service personnel home,
each and every mother, father, sister, son, brother, daughter, aunt, uncle, partner, wife, husband, sibling in-law, cousin, friend, lover, poet, musician, machinist, laborer, teacher, and the like –
bring ’em all home,
all two and a half million,

and have them then stand a post around that perimeter,
one of them every forty-two feet,
less than two first downs,
less than a sprint to first base,
about double the distance of the three-point line,
two-thirds the distance from the blue line to the net.

My name is Carlos Chagall, and I approve this post.

Tags: Canada, Independence Day, Mexico, platform, United States, United States Armed Forces

Comment

Room Below, Drumroll!

Filed under: Music Set To Poetry — 2 Comments

April 8, 2013

Sebastien Greco, Vocals
Carlos Chagall, guitars, bass

From the room below there’s a drumroll,
from good speakers, sounds like vinyl
pushing air, down below.
And up top a zoot sizzles on a Zildjian,

a zephyr in the trees,
just a haze, a cool gone wild.

In the mist, in the pink, in the midst, on the brink,
of a turnaround, one more time, leave it unresolved,
dead on the beat.

The pickup at the start
like bells on horses, loping slow in winter
but picking up speed. There! In the glass!
Under rough blankets drawn up o’er our heads,
or on a summer day, with the sheets drawn down,
tracing dusty rays.

Some spittle, a lick on a stick,
it’s just a rattle, a roll,
a drag across cobblestone.

I blow smoke, Ringolevio,
and 3 steps over Germany,
in the ether I’m there.
On your rooftop coming down on your fire escape
breathing in thin air, gone dizzy
in somber altitude, I unjustly expire.

Rough blankets drawn up o’er our heads,
or on a summer day, with the sheets drawn down,
tracing dusty rays. Some spittle, a lick on a stick,
it’s just a rattle, a roll, a drag across cobblestone.

From the room below there’s a drumroll,
from good speakers, sounds like vinyl
pushing air, down below.
And up top a zoot sizzles on a Zildjian,
a zephyr in the treetops,
just a haze, a cool gone wild.

In the mist, in the pink, in the midst, on the brink,
of a turnaround, one more time, leave it unresolved,
dead on the beat.