With oxygen my chief inhalant,
I pulmonate my way
through a tangle of moments
I manage to right-side up
to a semblance of order,
I call my life.
They say that you focus
on only a thing at a time,
but I seem to be struggling
with even that.
I rotate through the five senses,
like so many outfits,
costume changes laid out for the week,
before wash day, Friday, rolls around.
I see, I hear, I smell, I taste, I touch,
I conquer.
Son of a bitch inside my head
keeps insisting it’s me,
though I’ve asked over and over:
please stop calling here.
I find serenity in the ground,
in the space around shape,
the silence between words,
the time around now.
It’s the art of glass blowing,
creating outsides from the inside,
from a glowing tip,
sand to form to ash.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 