On a carpet of flower petals
I lie eyeing the sun. Tap
those receptors there,
prod me to yearn for forever
or another vast place where I sense
my being is once removed.
My sunlit face not a fleeting echo.
Her smile across the handlebars
with my heart there in the basket.
I watch her pedal away. Somewhere
there are sambas playing.
© Chagall 2016
For my Dad, 5th Marines, Spearhead Division, Iwo Jima,
who lived through events that I cannot even fathom.
My dad said
just before landing
they handed out shots of
pure grain alcohol 180 proof
courage at 9 knots moving in
Higgins boats toward the island
when the bow ramp dropped the Marines in front
went face-down quickly into the ocean while the others
ran by to stake positions on the red volcanic sand surrounding the prize
Mount Suribachi
© Chagall 2016
There’s full moons tonight
All the worlds everywhere
Love sighs
By the light of ancient stars
Lips part breathless
© 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
I’m an ukulélé by an open window and
I’m hoping that you’ll pick me up to pluck
Sing a song about three lovers near the water
Lala lala lala la aloha-oe
© Chagall 2016
In the photo we are at
the corner of Rue N. Chapeau Rouge,
Dijon, France, circa 2011,
in front of a flower shop,
each petal so finely fixed in digital color,
your arm under mine, our gazes down, smiling,
with various Dijonaise blurred about us scurrying,
caught up in their day-to-day.
© Chagall 2016
So when we can take a pill
to alter at will
ethnicity and race,
then what will we fight about?
© Chagall 2016
If you – my student –
go forward to do great things,
come back for me, take me along for the ride.
© Chagall 2016
If I took all those moments and ran them as a reel
– a film rather a dance – what would they amount to
in grams on ethereal scales how much would they weigh?
© Chagall 2016
Gravity or intent
drives the hand
down
© Chagall 2016
Alphabet City 