No words for the colors my body burns
Neither primary, pastel, nor flying
Instead a conflagration, deep amber
Dark roux near burn, my soul charred flour
Equal parts air, love, and salty water
Stirred to thicken and left to cool a spell
Upon fine filament I ride to you
More than passing a glance our eyes absorb
What’s essential behind, unspoken
In search of clarion call
A prayer for forgiveness prior any act
Repentance in arrears
Chagall 2019
i return to my device and the word application asks
want to save? implying my previous work unsaved,
i reply Yes for i trust my earlier self enough
to have made some excellent changes
Chagall 2017
What is there
after you’ve flown?
Where are you
once you touched down?
Careful there on the ledge,
perhaps you’ll not fly again.
How sad to have flown
for the last time.
When up is down
to fall is to fly.
How joyous to have
flown at all.
I’d have thought
clouds to be harder.
I invert when I fly
for I am the sky.
So inwardly
I fall.
Alight on soft pockets
of air.
Dust
on air.
I pray while
I fall.
The whole planet
is falling.
We spin and we turn and
we tilt and we yaw.
The earth rushes to us
once befallen.
© Chagall ∞
if you and i were hummingbirds
you would never alight at the feeder
but instead would draw nectar pulsing midair wildly
frenetic and i would simply perch, sip, occasionally peek
over our shoulders
to the jet stream, my dear?
© Chagall ∞
One more morning
I’ll write. Gray,
sure. Air with the
same scent and feel
as that day, you bet.
The need – the ache –
to hold onto anything
that doesn’t slip away.
Perhaps the living is
easy and the writing
tougher.
Sound attests
to the existence of time
as sure as motion does
yet so much timelessness
in the rustle, the whisper
of leaves on canopy branches
high among the zephyrs. I
grow dizzy to imagine myself
there at the top looking down.
Maybe I’ll feel more today and
write less about it, pull in
the shutters, the sash.
Still, here on the inside
I fashion small chips
of graphite into pencil
an essential element
to build strong bones.
With enough sun and love
a stand of kindred spirits
can endure forever.
© Chagall ∞
I’m exploring why this one particular
poem of my own makes me cry.
© Chagall ∞
In an instant the sound of the ocean ceased
and in that vacuum nothing remained
save the din of human voices.
© Chagall ∞
Light will guide me back
To ascension, a view from above,
Lofty gray weightlessness,
Ethereal suspension among birds
Of distinction, marked no longer
By petty ways, now only grand schemes
To return one again to a state of grace,
To engulf my self, to imbibe as well
The liquid of life, thus to hang in the balance,
Neither here nor there as it should be, to be
Either actually is a penchant unchained still linked
To time, once blinded I sensed the fence surrounding
Me so I blinked and clicked my heels, an attempt to awaken,
To rise, to ascend, score a view from above in the lofty gray.
Weightless.
© Chagall ∞
I will cash in on thespian knowledge
So I really must know how to act
Or make a fortune while foretelling karma
Still I’d owe way too much deep in debt
So I’ll seek to reap riches from relating tales
About life being grand at the edge
Where only sweet water flows across miles
Evanescent, effervescent, ever long
© 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 ∞
Alphabet City 