I find I
am torn
perforated
ripped along
dotted lines
Someday
I will
reassemble
sans
seams
© Chagall 2017
Tag Archive: hope
Snow, an extended heaven-sent sigh
expresses its passion as a function
of the angle of its fall; precipitation
begat and chilled by the wind, a fluttery
jitterbug afoot overhead. My scarf wraps
twice to warm me, beguiled amid words that
form between flakes, they speak you know –
to warn me there just ahead is a hand
reaches out to embrace but the space between,
the chasm divide is too great, still we blow,
still we fall to the ground, a powder, a mist
slowly wisps away in time, nestled deep in the throes,
in our throwaway wraparound world we propel ourselves
deeper each time we fall, backwards off-stage I trust
you’ll catch me never let me fall,
I would break along dotted lines …
snow from afar
each little star
is snow.
© Chagall 2017
Through the south-facing window I see the eagle fly
till the edge of the pane, so I run to the east
to espy her in contiguous flight but she is nowhere to be seen.
I return to find that the window is gone as well.
© Chagall 2017
The last silver streamer alights,
confetti and ticker tape abandon flight,
balloons fall from celebration
failing to be held aloft.
Remember when we were? Each awakening brought
a new day with new sun in which we bathed defiant,
we dared it to blind us, we countered with our own
heat, radiance, impulse to grow, and then to burn away.
Soft brooms whisk the memory; the clink of glasses raised
to toast is still there, not quite yet imperceptible.
© Chagall 2017
While watched pots might never boil
Those left alone inevitably burst into flames
© Chagall 2016
The situation grows worse though
nothing has changed; she turns
to face the windswept space below
confident it will hold her. In
pointe slippers she tiptoes nearer
the edge and simply falls forward.
The ground recedes, gets smaller
with each new inch of elevation.
She turns midair and allows herself
a moment to revel in ascension. She
has never before dreamed but now seems
the right time.
© Chagall 2016
At the seam of the mist
she dances on shard.
The hurricane redoubles, whipped glass,
her lamp splays across the crag,
barefoot maniacal, strands of
soaked being, where sea becomes storm.
She brighter than the lightning
failing to illuminate her moment aflame.
The air is filled with
the howling song of massive woodwinds.
Perhaps calliopes
she whispers.
© Chagall 2016
The curtain is parted as she’d left it,
worlds continue passing by.
© Chagall 2016
Candles oblige me, light me back
to the sea, for at night I lose my way
if not for the sound of surf, the salt-spray,
I’d be lost, tossed about as innocence in the squall,
fragile bones amid limber wind, snapped barely alive
except for the thought of you buried deep,
the last seed of hope that I know I’ll sow someday.
© Chagall 2016
The lights are going out,
not forever – just for now.
We have coffee and tea,
we can make bread if need be,
sing, play cards …
Only for a little while,
only just for now.
© Chagall 2016
Alphabet City 