Tag Archive: poetry


Held

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Precious the time was
and now it’s down to this
the final eve before leaving

Perhaps we should just embrace
from now till then, though there’s
a strong case never to separate

I will relish the feel of your cheek
against mine, soothes my mind, relaxes my temples
the mere brush of your lash

Your breathing, the way you draw life
is so close to me now in the surround
you make with a wave of your hand and hair

There is no reason to ever release this hold
no way to improve the way I feel right now
I would die and mummify, oh so happy

© Chagall 2014

I Think So, We’re Both Budding!

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Some seeds display
erratic behavior
rather inconsistency
in their rate of sprout
with respect to time –
how long – and volume –
how many, more specifically
the percentage coming through

I treat such seeds with mild disdain
jostling their incubators and
peat pellet packs, perturbations
surely their style, nothing regular
about the routine I provide, rotating
to sun, shade to moist, dry
to mist, drench to relaxed bouts
on cedar planks, cool porches after
hot days, the deck still radiant with heat
photons captured their pulse eager
to tell of where they’ve been, places
they hope to see

The seeds, perhaps seedlings now, asleep atop this cooling bed
dream on behalf of light emanating underneath as heat

Into the earth on a vision quest
for hydrogen-oxygen-carbon – even more sunlight
color minerals, trace elements, the spectrum
proxy for the union of unnamed things

Inconceivably there are no more miles for the light to travel,
if I have not made my point clear, it’s traveled all of the miles
of distance that exist

So it must assemble in wave, in halos about the drop-off so sheer
without sign of bottom, more surrender than plummet, the last call for shadows
in a world of no sound though I imagine that the shriek of gravity is deafening
beyond here there are no more walls

it’s certainly not the place nor time
for hand puppets though that certainly would be ballsy

Hop atop with me, ride the sunspot madly
blindly, dash with me into the light
we shall make new stems and leaves together!

© Chagall 2014

Sans Mots

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I feel that old wedge of wood
between my plexus and my temple
meaning the pressure of time
to get things done, I’ve learned
to feel it without words, it is
merely sensation, like the rose
petal of circling bullet holes
that I’ve deemed my anger there
in a stream of turrets just above
my belt line, mossy scent of water
heady far back behind the eyes coats
the back and top of the inside of my
skull is the melancholy of remembering you

© Chagall 2014

Tightly Drawn And Cozy

In the canvas bag where I stored garden hand-tools,
in a side pocket covered by a blue-black-white

paisley bandana, I kept a small brass pipe and a palm-size
stash of homegrown I’d grown here at home years ago excellent really quite primo

kept moist by rotating wedges of apple newly
I’d partake every now and then

when out in the green house at the potting bench (no pun intended)
the aroma of earth, water, and oxygen processing

in filtered sunlight
and sometimes in moonlight

wondrous dahlias and grapes on grafted rootstock
made tougher to live here, to be able to endure here

propagating boxwood and ficus and fig
helping them to get through the erratic germination of exotic types

in the end just hoping
we’d all find simpler things

© Chagall 2014

The Resiliency Tango

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From above one could see that the wires were old
and her fall would potentially be
quite a serious one, at least we first thought

Until that day she fluttered and fell, simply slipped right out of the sky
rode updrafts for a while before crashing down
when all the world was essentially right

But did you see the way she sprung back? She sprung up!
Her back hit the ground for nary a moment, then she arched, she bounced
up onto the soles of her feet, stomped once and levitated, I swear . . .

Some say just tango on and so she did dancing across the room
her body in tight lithe lines, defiant neckline swept to long driving legs
arms outstretched grasping for fingers to touch to feel opposing pressure

There is a moment at the end of the dance when the dancer transitions from a state of grace
to clearly being after – no longer of – the dance, a place of repose
where she’s able to see the dancers in retrospect, the steps no longer before her

A spin dies, loses momentum till the point upon which the spin depended
gives way and collapses the spinner, now spent but dizzy, happy to feel
the cold ice against her cheek, upon gloved hands she rises quickly before her skin sticks

One
(two-three-four)

Tango on

© Chagall 2014

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Abuzz
and so there’s apt to be

an I
who must name the white-hot point

just life
throbs and flows goes up-down the frame

neon really
while no one’s there to watch it

© Chagall 2014

And Let Live

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Can you go organic
and not have comments like
Hey, what’s with the gnats?

© Chagall 2014

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All of my elves
seem to match

© Chagall 2014

Suppose

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I told her I’d drive her
absolutely no problem
in fact I would be honored

she said you’d have to then drive home alone

I replied that needn’t be true
I could simply stay on
forever

© Chagall 2014

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Brutal honesty
Truth lies outside even that
Spring could do better

© Chagall 2014