Today’s snow is like that night years ago with my Dad
under the street lamp, both on our backs looking up
making angels, I not yet ten and he near sixty,
giggling together while the flakes wet our faces,
how pink his cheeks are, how deep are his eyes
in the blue of that night.
© Chagall 2015
She said she saw the bittersweet
autumn in early spring, knew that
sunlight over time would burn her
colder than today.
© Chagall 2015
All is said and done,
time has run down,
slow dancers, soft steps
trespass in style without smiles,
guileful pliés leave me unamused.
© Chagall 2014
Just as song the words flow
in time, gating the sense.
To know is
in the making.
The interval is not known
until the second tone.
© Chagall 2014
I think the bus ride made it more deadbeat,
or maybe the air brakes provided downbeat each stop –
each time someone tripped the ripcord and let go the ring
and the driver would pull his lever to release the doors to allow the exit
late in the evenings when day was just about done save for the last strong glow
of orange sun atop rooftops and spires, where the harsher shadows would never dare
to alight, where early dreamers could already be seen floating on air
souls akimbo bathing in aqueducts of cool breeze, brisk wind really
whipping about, inverting – sault-somering freefall
down to the street below to the windshields
of city buses toting us home to the love.
© Chagall 2014
My dad’s been dead
for many years
yet clearly
it’s his voice
coming out
therein
the static
from the speakers
© Chagall 2014
I know nothing’s permanent
Everything – everyone – dies
I bring that somber to all I do
Even the happy times
© Chagall 2014
Stick figures she’d draw on the mirror
appear in the bathroom steam
weeks after her passing
© Chagall 2014
I embraced your arrival
so I will hold you as well
when you perish, you will taper
and disappear to leave behind
an asterisk, the ripple
of a damselfly on the lake
pure crystal tone
© Chagall 2014
Still early, it’s only three thirty
I’ve got a few more hours to go
I savor remaining moments
each time they come
Younger I’d pack
a life into each
With a will so great
I could make that happen
Compress
spans of life
A run-on string
at the tail-end
I run my palm
over a small rise
on an otherwise
perfect face
When the time comes
she will lift my last finger from the grip
and I will slip from the jamb
© Chagall 2013
Alphabet City 