I fear we’re becoming
people who have no concern
for those who succeed us
Instead we live for the moment
without an obligating sense
to make Gaia inheritable
Similarly there are those
who have no reverence
for those who precede us
Family, tradition, culture and mores
reduce to biology resembling nothing
more than a gene pool
May they drown in the shallow end
Chagall 2016
There are high tones
in all things about her
Smell, sound, taste,
touch, sight
Her presence brings quick arousal,
awareness that life starts here
As her dimensions deepen
I find myself more
mystifyingly immersed
Oddly – sadly –
perhaps it is time
to part
Chagall 2015
Too much optimism is cloying
while actuality is not quite as stark
as the realists might think
There is truth in the ground
but one needs to make figure
go away to see dark matter
The two profiles are the urn
a kiss creates then spills an ewer of honey
making for sticky back and fore grounds
Your aroma is metal, flinty
yet underneath sweet like talc
provoked aflame you are caramel
Stretched, kept in contact too long we fuse
the undersides along the length of our arms
our bellies plus our thighs adhere
Erasing the lines that define us
we become amorphous form with shading
Chagall 2016
I remember now as a child
the sense of falling
Not down on my knees
but plummeting
Earth was falling, hurtling through space
and I was attached to the Earth
My Mother held me tight
while the wind tunneled about us
though stars receded, secure I grew
to ignore the fall
I remember now as a child
that sense of falling
Chagall 2016
They tell me that to live
you need full sunlight
So I gather you up, I take you
room to room
In winter too we search for light
east to west on a slight deep arc
we’re pitched more shallow
Where nurture is wan
we work harder for more
Time sometimes casts no shadow
I’ve found from time to time
yet I always feel I’m walking
beneath something
What is that thing
we’re walking under?
Full sunlight means there’s little time
for spending shadows if one’s to live
so let’s live it
find light in every darkness around
by doing so you will become light
by doing so you become light
by doing so become light
by doing so – light
intense
beautiful
reflective
sentient
being
Chagall 2015
No rattle less hum –
breathless longer than planned
she glides with the softest
of leads less than air really
Les couloirs
she says pointing, excites many meanings
She knows I pretend I’m unsure
that I’ve heard her correctly
Chagall 2016
Before time there wasn’t only
incessant heartbeat
Humans though water are merely steam
no less of all things
The moment before you knocked
the door swings open wide: you arrive
The ones already in search continue
long before you’re here
And wordless reads best
though you can’t remember
I relish the sizzle
when we meet ice
How we burn
underneath the numb
Chagall 2016
I’d rather dance just with you
perhaps even drink alone now that there is
some moon this New Year’s Eve
Your name is Jessica Eve so that makes you
the night before Jessica
(I was once the elf
of Saturday Eve)
I consider us one since we will howl
together in the wetlands tonight
The stars shift subtly look different
with passing time though not quite aligned
to the stroke at midnight
My heart will cascade its tickertape
among the fleeting, their raised flutes intone
ripe crystals, honed glass holds the promise
of the toast to which we all spring
Love & Peace in 2016
Chagall 2015/2016
Down from Stuyvesant Town
a little bit up from the Boys Club
Where the bus lets you off
at Eleventh & A
About thirty feet above ground
my soul hangs suspended
I hover there to watch life pass
sweetly through a window frameless
A point of view timeless
as before is coincident now
Old city brick woven
in fire escapes
We’re once young stealing kisses
miles away at the southern tip
There the island goes dark
where two rivers meet
Alone at the point
amid too many crosswinds
Lean flat
lie back into the wall
Chagall 2015
The night air is extraordinarily
cold, rarefied – prompts me to consider
if I had considered the language
It is snowing
then I thought simply
It snows
or simpler
Snowing
and still
just
Snow
sparkling
dry falling
night squadrons
wee icy crystals
cascade down her lashes
freeze cheeks
numb kisses
her lips
quickly
we are the first
to warm ankle-deep in
Snowfall
Chagall 2015
Alphabet City 