As a child I could project myself to the tops of tall trees
I would search out the highest point of the canopy and imagine
The world from that vantage
My wings would ache
To fly down to me
Looking up
Instead I’d turn
My sideways glance
To the sky
As a bird I would project myself to the lowest clouds
I would search out the thinnest white line and imagine
The heavens from that vantage
My wings still ache
From ascension
Chagall ∞
The tapping whisper of rain,
Gulls soar, serifs against the long stretch
Of sky and land, the mosaic face of water,
Morning air, thin and cold, early day
Mist envelops always, hope is desire
To release, to touch the atmosphere,
To mean the words yet to find tongues,
Tone recedes into tones receding, the far edge
Where filaments unravel into the empty, void
Unless stamped otherwise, a puddle to stomp,
A bright yellow-slicker, the tapping whisper
of rain.
© Chagall ∞
babushka ladies, coarse and woolen coats,
plastic covers adorn divans and settees
in quiet parlors, front rooms in railroad
ghetto apartments
people to the left of me,
to the right of me, above and below,
whispers through the closets I hear
encounters that threaten danger in muffles
intended for someone else not me thank God
this time.
And Rivera still flies his pigeons
against bluest skies, a Latino silhouette
with arms extended like a holy man gives flight
to his flock over tenements and heartbreak,
the hope of generations, dormant and receding.
© Chagall 2015
I remember now – once as a child
I had devised a way to forget.
Did I really spring from that?
© Chagall 2015
I miss how as a child
I’d wake up afraid of the dark
Convinced that something was out there
© Chagall 2015
My father dropped lines for a living,
distinguished foul from fair,
white chalk on the greenest of grass,
bounded baseball diamonds, tapered
to a fine point at home, tracing
divergent infinities, right and left field,
I’d join him Saturday mornings, in chilly spring
in early mist, before mid-day suns
would warm and laughter ring,
the pop of ball on leather mitts
rising above the hurrah, higher than towering
flies in golden sky that shine no more
except in the glimmer of my mind’s eye.
© Chagall 2014
Castles down
by the sea
wash away
in fades bubbles
of once
a child laughed
for sun so strong
forever ebbing
in froth under foam
to sleep she counts
faintly discernible starfish
© Chagall 2014
Colorful balloons
air nearly spent dragging string
searching for their child
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 