Elevate beyond the veil
overlook the valley
I’m not quite sure
if there will be dales
as well, just land
safely (I pray the pall
will lift) – remember
please kiss Earth
once alighted, give Mother
my regards.
Chagall 2015
Tag Archive: love is
When she was a child we played a game
we pretended to be high on a cliff at the edge
losing grip on our footing we’d plummet
down off the bed as if from Everest
at the last minute grabbing hands in mid-air
in outstretched rescue every sinewy muscle
straining to hold onto life. She writes
that it’s readied her well for the fight,
she loves me, it’s time to let go.
Chagall 2015
I wrote a song just for her
about the sand and sea
I played it
and she swam away
© Chagall 2014
Today, this morning after
we left you alone
in your bronze home
aside the dirt-mound,
cordoned off
by rope and flowers,
I expected to wake
to the incredible weightlessness
of cold and sorrow,
but instead
I rise to nothing
but extreme desire
and eternal yearning
to perform spectacular acts
of radical kindness.
© Chagall, 2013
I greet you as you would me
and kiss you as I would the other.
It’s how I distinguish
love from lust, what lasts
from what rises and falls,
forms and crumbles,
lives, then withers, and dies.
I hale you as you would
the almighty reach of sky:
expanse, curved, keeps us
on the ground lest we float away.
It’s how I declare
my love for you, its reach
exceeds horizons, and wraps around
like garland, silver on a gift.
I tuck you in as you would a child,
nestled in down, deep in warmth.
That’s how I assure
you are safe and forever within reach,
your cheek, your lips,
your essential being inside me.
© Chagall, 2013
Beloved,
you write of the white statues
in the gardens of midnight
alabaster darkened
in the weak rays of stars
overhead in cold skies
where a kiss is like a petal
torn from just above the thorn
but before the bud
with only a hint
of the bouquet
and the promise
and we twirl
and we twirl
and we twirl
madly under moons
that are merely satellites
escorts for the real
who are meant to die in one’s stead
should it be necessary
who knows what’s need
in everything
there is no exception
to the rule
a tear on cold steel
warms the blade
if only ever so slightly
and we laugh
and we cry
and we die
sadly in our finest hours
since this is all there is
that we have
we know what’s beyond
it’s what’s here
that we’ll need to conceive
© Chagall, 2013
Lily was a dancer
you could tell
by the moves
she couldn’t make
Billy was a singer
worked the deli crowd
you could say
a counter tenor?
Weekends spent
backgammon and gins
and tonics and
nachos and sex
and gins and
tonics
pirouettes
arpeggios
and daydreams
come and go
all in a row
© Chagall, 2013
The ghost is going
down smooth
spirits invoke
spirits, there’s no
telling when
the muse will come
she’s such
a fussy lover
I can labor here
for hours
though I really can’t complain
I could relish her taste
for hours
until she comes
in colors mostly
take life slow
life is anything
that doesn’t involve
the outside
looking in
am I being too obscure?
let me make it plain
life is you and me
on a raft afloat
clinging to
forever
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
She breaks too easy
for a woman
at the softest touch,
the lightest stroke
despite the care I take
to assure that only
ambient moonlight
touches her skin
she burns
that only the quietest
of whispers
would funnel to her mind
through the kisses I’d rain
on her ears
she’d tense
inhale sharply
in pain
sometimes cry
facing the wall
I can carry her
if she’d let me
the way from here
to anywhere
in the manner
she’d ask
handle with care
with the right side up
savor and adore
all that’s left
she draws the curtains now
they blow wildly and wrap her
in spectral gauze
she, before the window
in wan starlight
pale
smiling
seemingly
unbroken
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Love, it seems,
must also remind
of the sadness in the world,
of all that we need
to protect against.
From sorrow arises
love. Two wrapped-up as one
is love, a pretty bow.
What we stand to lose is all
we’ve ventured to gain.
At the heart’s gate,
a note pinned by a thistle,
so flyaway, sways
in the morning breeze,
discernible only in moonlight,
its message faded by rain.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
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