Don’t let it fool you,
the moment rides forever;
you are just the stop.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Tag Archive: poetry
Thousands of strange lights,
an armada of seers,
protecting the point.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I am becoming more intrigued with form,
yesterday, jazzy verse just suit me fine.
I’m slow now, I take patience with the line,
take time to build, weather better the storm.
The word deluge that had become my norm,
drowned me, submersed my head in a sound brine,
lacked any meaning, for lack of trying.
My madness now will be more uniform.
I’ve never embraced you in silhouette,
though we once were both bathed in indigo.
Your every movement is a pirouette.
I cling to the rock face, cold vertigo,
like that time I felt on the parapet.
Now I’m ready to leap, if you say so.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Chance, fling, sing, dance,
Prance, wing, sting, romance,
Someday, maybe, anyway,
baby, I’ll say, we’ll see.
Sonnet line-endings I will never use,
Petrarchan, octave and sestet pairing,
so much to gain, ergo plenty to lose,
when poets go astray, lose their bearing.
It’s easy to just settle, stop caring,
take to hypnotics, or just plain old booze,
get caught in sun spots, in solar flaring,
perish in flame before paying the dues.
So I buckle down and get serious,
edit and rewrite, until it’s just right,
like courting a young and elusive Miss,
who smells like lavender, emits sunlight.
Move quickly now, inch in to steal a kiss!
Better yet? Wait till the cover of night.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I do it again,
peel the gold-foil wrapping
from the neck of another
poem.
I extract the cork,
straight-up, briskly,
neatly.
Out of its element,
the poem first takes
small panting breaths.
I ignore it, pretend to be busy,
a séance with Rimbaud,
perhaps a sonnet of vowels.
It develops nose,
emotes terroir,
softens its tannins.
Does a verse and chorus
of Leonard Cohen’s
Hallelujah.
I swirl it and snort it and sip it and swish it and spit it
out and taste the lingering . . .
Berry, chocolate, tobacco, and leather,
hints of pollen and honey,
grand cru.
This sort is rarely a standalone varietal,
usually, rather, the base for a blend.
I lick every drop I see running,
with expert plucks of my tongue.
I sense the bottle is bottomless,
sugary, vintage, a great year for sure.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
I stand in sunshine,
photons bombard my being:
untethered light speed.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
There’s a combination of words, somewhere in here,
if I get ’em right, they’ll light up there;
maybe come in at an odd angle,
find the flow, outskirts in,
a beeline
to the heart of it,
maybe bounce on that, for a while from the inside-out.
Where are you, words who make it plain?
Come out, come out!
Low ceilings, flat echoes,
big halls, round sounds swell,
sway like water balloons on branches
the girth of your wrists.
I kiss the backs of your hands,
small sweeps of warm lips
on that spot where you’d balance the world.
Lean in and listen, I just got to say,
somethings gotta give, I just feel it,
you know what I mean?
I don’t splash in all the puddles,
I try to leave the best for the rest to enjoy.
I’m a time traveler,
I’m a space invader,
I’m a mocha chocolate chippy for you.
Word combos, ballroom letter mambos,
OYE PEOPLE CONGA LINE!
from here to
(touch the middle of your forehead)
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
She, eloquently,
recited his passages,
as he once would have.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
It suddenly stopped?
She could explain, given time,
but you don’t let her.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Midnight, sparkled frost.
A full moon presides o’er fields,
where I’ll never lie.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 