I’m not saying attempt it anew
listen closely and read my lips:
Trite again!
© Chagall 2014
Tag Archive: poetry
The line was intended for someone to say
You’re lucky enough to have gotten to write it
And maybe that’s all that there was
With nothing more to expect
I though I’d be crushed
with you being less
© Chagall 2014
You can’t orient yourself in the dark, accept that. Without exception
Everything’s inclusive or nothing at all. Flip an edgeless coin
And yet, there it stands. Use your imagination if there’s a next time
You need a crutch to suppress the limp
Raggedy soul you bare from the backside of your jammies.
Bedtime stories unfold their plots like grave sites yawn say Ahh
I’ve seen worse, the better off I got. My last job
I toppled angels from pinheads and threw them over shoulders
For luck.
© Chagall 2014
I forgot
all you now know
while you were still
in utero
© Chagall 2014
The universe births creatures
Unfolds them from the void.
Elisabeth pops towels and sheets
Clearly unwrinkled
From the dryer, driest
When cynical. Small gel tablets
Pass in four-way kiss
From under the tongue
Without the right of way.
If you can’t stand to see me this way
Then please, sit
Close your eyes, let down your hair
As I did you, more or less than you think
Therefore, philosophers say that you are
But we know better, best when shaken.
Who knew so many carats
Could assemble and still
Lack luster? My collection
Of ring fingers always points.
Just add light
Stir and arouse, but beware
Facets and edges.
Stars collapse under
Their fiction, covers ripped
Not for resale but bargain bins.
Just burn. Destiny has no children
Yet, stillborn nieces
Refuse to leave nana’s house
Fearful of starless nights.
May I call you Liz?
I prefer my satin rough
This evening clear as the day
After. My love for you
Is a gnawing sorrow
That’s near chewed through
But nothing that plaster
Can’t mend.
© Chagall 2014
Ash like snow falls and obscures
perfect September morning
a sky alive with whirlybirds
Midnight comes twice
today and remains
Oil lamps burn the southern tip
where east meets west at a point
As the deck of the fishing boat awash in waves
erases the legs of survivors
© Chagall 2014
We slingback angels
fine-tune ardor
to any pitch
skilled in the art
of mouth-to-mouth
tongue-in-cheek
one-in-hand
two in the bush
three’s a crowd
for five dollars
maybe even
a foot long
© Chagall 2014
There are those who marvel at relics
millennia old while mine are merely
centuries gone from the dawn of the art
of photography
1840
I relish the light
on the fine combed locks
of a young girl in a field
I call her Melissa so vibrant
she is thinking of the morning’s chores
she senses she’s extra pretty
atop the fence rail, head cocked to the left
just right – now hold it
You feel me there as a tickle
the gnaw in the back of your mind
is me, but I’m too far down the road
Then later, delicious fair one
you took me to your room
lonely, candlelit, lilac
I unlace your bodice, kiss your neck
your curls, concentric circles
about your face
Then you gently blow the tapirs
and lower us onto foamy down
The catch-light in your eyes that day
two-hundred year old photons
washed ashore to still your soul
has long since left your body
You have returned to earth
where all you transcend
I hold here in my hand
with most fervent hope
I will will your time again
© Chagall 2014
Honey, the bee’s now
Genetically modified
Pollinates plastic
© Chagall 2014
Have I been guilty since innocence died
or is it just a passing phase,
to turn a phrase faster than the other cheek
we turn, we dance in light yet received
here in passing glance from the corner of eyes
I’d ache for until I knew you once upon a
timeless place, this heap of abandoned garden
rusted gate and crooked walk, tears-soaked
cobblestone grout lines the words we didn’t say
except out loud to hide the knowing, to shield
them dusk till dawn freezes over, and over and done
again and yet no more or less than the sum
is greater than the parting of seas where we’re born
birthed to behold the saline state of our lives
we once walked upright, before the floods
until after the Eve of the mad dash
© Chagall 2014
Alphabet City 