As a kid we had the five-second rule:
if you dropped something, especially food,
you had that much time before germs settled in.
Though I did favor more a three-second version
depending on the drop’s locale.
Forty percent less likelihood for foreign biology to hitch a ride
should a sandwich or a lover’s heart ever touch cobblestone.
Beware the violent rip on the lower back
as you plunge in time
to retrieve
your item.
© Chagall 2014
While I would die for my children
she would undergo suffering for any;
such selflessness is her sainthood.
© Chagall 2014
Angels topple from the heads of pins,
who knew there’d be so many?
I fail to feel triumphant
amid such sad hurrah.
Their anguished song as one rues the lesser vantage;
while I’d rather reign than occupy, pray than hope, I choose instead
to fly away and alight atop an ancient arch, not very far from the fall.
© Chagall 2014
The northern lights are visible this weekend
though overcast skies keep them from us; late Sunday
they blow away to reveal a cold bowl of stars,
dark wisps, sprigs of clouds, halos, coiled pasta,
organic tendrils; we let go the tether and ride the turbulence
Sad duets lost at the bridge, flicker wildly,
strive to hold their flame; so much burns so quickly
With you along the night passes slowly, deliciously
under swirling polar lights, concentric heavens,
odysseys etched in the dome, the routes of gods to God;
early wayward travelers gaze down to balance our heavenly vigor
Immortality is knowing,
we sample each permutation,
subtle flavors, acquired tastes
We are naked, dead in each others arms,
the end of the earth at the pole, frozen,
fused blue ice, unbearably, insanely happy
© Chagall 2014
Everyday we lose subtleties,
small gestures of grace and faith
now somewhere in the void.
Perhaps not irretrievable:
one would need a hand,
a borrowed shoulder and someone’s heart maybe to cry on.
I pulse, you pulse, the way it’s supposed to happen
over time.
A perch,
unseen bird relaxes
and intuitively expels
the only song in the world.
A branch,
doves couple and breathe
into one another.
So rarefied from atop the canopy,
I yearn to stretch and become the horizon.
God, I am so endeared to the splay of existence,
I shake because I feel too much.
Too much
fades away.
© Chagall 2014
Last night
on Dream Orbs
Earth lost
© Chagall 2014
She’s too polite a poetess perhaps, upbringing is hard to shake,
with the grace to condone even those who’d regard her
disdainfully, empowered to do so by her own decree,
so self-destructive she is.
Be not reluctant
to unveil secrets after all
that’s what words which glance aslant are for . . .
she once wrote, or something to that effect and along those lines.
Her speech once was cursive, carved and poignant filigree
about the air and above the heads of unsuspecting passers-by,
she hovered in full Technicolor over the bleak and disenfranchised
ideas yet to be grasped, bursts of dizzying oxygen but helium-spiced,
sugars, and everything nice, a will-o’-the-wisp who left behind
the scent of salty brine and lavender.
I will have kissed her face in the warm downpours,
brushed snow from her lashes, stood her umbrella in summer sand,
and pondered with her the golden passing of autumn,
every year since I’ve known her.
She writes less and less, prefers instead to hold it in these days,
to let it eat away rather than share the poverty, she’s decided that’s more valuable,
though she occasionally jots off a couplet or two, just for me,
and once a sonnet shared over cocktails and take-out.
Sometimes I sit at the piano and shape chord forms freely in space,
handsome constructions of arched fingers and opposing motions,
search for dissonance though often find harmony,
while she randomly intones beautiful sonorous sounds like words
aimed at the more resonant chambers of the room, her voice round
with a touch of the rasp to alert the world-weary that we are kindred spirit;
her melody shifts at odd intervals and the tempo-free meter allows us to float
in time and heart, in perfect poise aligned without tonic,
we resolve at will, or not at all, the upper partials of our tensions,
we modulate to a better point of view on life, its victories
and more often of late, its sweet despairs, which no one key
can capture, paint, hold or release; how many times we’ve stopped mid-phrase
and have kissed like two insane pretending, without losing the tone nor the shape of our song.
© Chagall 2014
I think we should require
everyone to kiss everyone hello
Yes it would take a very long time
but I really believe we are worth it
© Chagall 2014
Our greatest achievement lies yet in our next encounter
somewhere along this way, I’m told by the same, she advises you
as well, you know this as plain as I;
I tell you nothing new that’s not old,
ancient in fact though we sometimes get lost in our fictions,
twice-told and still surprised!
As many lights that night as there will be bells
from faraway hills, resonant peals of sound and sight
and indigo awash everywhere there is sky or earth or water.
© Chagall 2014
Poetry aspires
and says that
Not unlike
humans
Theme’s
intent
One’s
we
© Chagall 2013
Alphabet City 