Tag Archive: poetry


Sonnet For Dying Sonnets

Running away, we outrace the comets,
then rest on our backs, at the southern pole;
stars, concentric orbits, clarions toll:
Life on this planet, as good as it gets.

My love for you hangs in mist, crystalline,
cascades in tickling ripples down your face,
rinses from inside out, the dust, this place.
There is no heaven, nor hell, this serene.

There is no place at all, there’s no bridge back.
I reel, mad dance, awestruck, struck dead, anew,
the last call. We didn’t make it did we?
“No my love, we both died in the attack.”

Cold wild winds blow hard in vain to renew
the calm before the storm, eternally.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013


We are all gathered.
. . . with you.  And with your spirit.
Kneading daily bread.

© Carlos Chagall, April 2013

This was the very first post to Alphabet City in March.  We reissue it here as music set to poetry.  Sebastien and Chloe on vocals, along with the usual suspects playing behind them.  We are having fun here this wonderful April evening outside of NYC, 2013, planet Earth; hope you are doing the same.



I'm a wire thin warrior on rooftops in starlight.
Red-shifted from eons up alleys, down fire escapes.
Black and white flickers from Telstar,
from before the flood, but after the mad dash.

Back in the day, on Eleventh and A, 
who knew we were in Alphabet City?

Or that Twelfth and D would be the place to be?

On Tenth and First we'd quench our thirst
with piragüa in July, coquito in June,
from the little man with the blue pushcart 
and the green balloon.

So much love, so much heart, so sweet, 
so right, see you 
on the corner tonight.

Oyeme mulata!
Che che colé, 
que bueno e'?

Chicheme, March 2013
© Carlos Chagall, April 2013
Links 
Telstar

1 Question Haiku

Says here you have angst,
yet you are so poorly coiffed.
What’s up with that, hmm?

© Carlos Chagall, April 2013

 

For A Sleeping Chloé

chagall backdrop

Last night when I came into the bedroom,
I turned the light on low. You were asleep
with the most wonderful look on your face.

On your back with your hands drawn to your chin,
your shoulders raised in a shrug, eyes tight,
Duchenne smile, you beheld the marvelous,
cheeks red, lips pursed in amazement, as if
you were witnessing the birth of a star.

I watched you, in the presence of angels,
then I closed the light and raised the blanket,
and cautiously slid in there beside you,
so not to startle, jar your reverie.

I found my place in our nighttime hollow,
sunk in the mattress, you shifted and slid
into orbit along my gravity,
snuggling up warm and long against my back.

We are ancient Mayans drawn on the wall,
in the capsule, awaiting reentry.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

Paris (part 2)

cropped-rainbow-shutterstock_117680335.jpg
And the women?  Ah, the women
drive you crazy with their lazy
way of talking at you, pouting.
Whisper voulez-vous.

I never should have come to Paris.
I don't seem to be the kind.  Two 
walk the rainy streets along Versailles.

The Ile of France,
where emperors dance,
and the old dome, Notre Dame,
leave me breathless tonight.  I 

never know which side of the Seine I'm on.
I'll just ask a bookanista,
they all know me,
call me "Mon ami, l'americain."


- to be continued -
Carlos Chagall, 2013

Haiku Redux

cropped-rainbow-shutterstock_117680335.jpg
Haiku Redux is
not a bad name for a band.
Don't you think?  I do.

They'd play all their tunes
in seventeen four time, or
eighteen, but who's counting?

Chicheme, March 2013

Cosa Nuestra

I'm a wire thin warrior on rooftops in starlight.
Red-shifted from eons up alleys, down fire escapes.
Black and white flickers from Telstar,
from before the flood, but after the mad dash.

Back in the day, on Eleventh and A, 
who knew we were in Alphabet City?

Or that Twelfth and D would be the place to be?

On Tenth and First we'd quench our thirst
with piragüa in July, coquito in June,
from the little man with the blue pushcart 
and the green balloon.

So much love, so much heart, so sweet, 
so right, see you 
on the corner tonight.

Oyeme mulata!
Che che colé, 
que bueno e'?

Chicheme, March 2013

Links 
Telstar