Working right now on the internet’s interplanetary expansion,
appearances point to IPv12 to provide all that we’ll need
to be heard above the din of inter-creative force, a border protocol
at the edge near the boundary right before event horizons suck you in,
all for the sake of smileys bounced between the stars.
Murmuring I can’t distinguish
clearly, the words incanted
more than prayers, I think
perhaps ancient formulae.
© Chagall 2014
Behind the lullaby
celestial harmonic
breathy reeds beyond
the expanse there
billows life in bubbles
the multiverse born
of placenta from nil
inverts as blown glass
to become life like diamonds
on black velvet and God’s
throaty voice is every tone
and angels are arpeggios
© Chagall 2014
The bells of the new day joyously ring –
correction, triumphantly rang! – while
cold winds swept the whitest clouds
to the threshold of endless azure
and they and I in echelon bank hard
in a yaw and vertical dive till
ceremoniously, in quiet accord we right
to the ringing bells
© Chagall 2014
Rumor of my expansion
has been grossly
underplayed
Rimshot
But seriously . . .
You’ve been
a great Creation
Good night
and drive safely
© Chagall 2013
The arc of my float,
over the village,
a shallow parabola,
steady, deliberate
Pan on a taut guide,
level with those in the loge.
No one flies like this these days,
not like this anymore;
jump, trust, merge into updraft,
simple flip-gravity, easier to float
if you close your eyes.
How I love ascension,
my body carved, massages the flight:
Victory winged at Samothrace.
I’m young and crazed,
a romantic in the gondola, a pied balloon,
throwing out ballast to rise!
At night, low altitude,
I cherish the sight, your fires,
you hovered in the round,
my vantage point just above
tops of pines that surround.
Your laughter draws me,
I lower the flame,
I settle down,
pilot to a spot
right about where you sit.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Ashy indigo, backlit evening sky,
echoes the call across the universe,
orators prowl the low-end of the dome,
beneath the ear of any listener.
How’s your modulate, do you tune in so finely?
A tough station to catch at any time,
it’s undoubtedly easier at night,
signals bounced higher off star factory.
But we just don’t know for sure who’s watching.
Leaps from the edge, the event horizon,
end up in free fall to infinity,
to mornings in your bedroom, years ago.
Trap door bottoms out directly to you,
naked, your room’s light, bundling potpourri,
lavender, mint, melissa, and ginger,
aseptic, astringent, beaming holy.
I pull you back down, you’re preoccupied
carefully tucking the fine cotton gauze,
spilling tinctures, aromas on the bed,
so many sparkly beads at the party.
The pain of loving you overwhelms me.
I want to do nothing but pulse and stretch.
I know it’s short-lived, I’ll have to ascend,
back up the funnel, to free-fall, to Time.
For now I contemplate the reverie,
the joy of being anywhere at all,
let alone being anywhere with you,
this time, here, because, us two, doing our thing.
We are long-lived, we transcend the other,
leapfrogging our way to a lonely place
deep in cold space, out beyond the limit,
jettisoned, in eternal smooth motions.
Buoyed, embryonic, placenta fragments
like jigsaw pieces made-to assemble,
into odd shapes, misgivings, melodies
we sing only to ourselves late at might.
Charcoal violets, opalescence, twilight,
pearls throb tremors of rainbow in moonlight,
a kiss rips a hole in cracks of lightning,
leaves burnt sugars behind where we once stood.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Morning, atop a large rock,
a stone lily pad
in the middle of the stream,
a team-span wide.
Cold waters lap at the edges,
while one can ride dry,
at the high and round rump.
I’m there in perfectly old,
tattered blue-wool pullover,
weighted right against
the vigor of this new day.
How wonderful to have
so much morning remaining
to while away.
Dense clusters of small gnatty flyers
dance in ancient patterns,
in the vee-rays of early sun,
radiant light, pervasive heat,
waves in mirage, they flutter there,
bursting from vernal pools.
Rainbows used to dance here,
leave small wakes, glide on eddies,
do backstrokes, with no one watching.
Masterful puppeteer of lightweight test,
set dry flies still,
perfectly still.
With but the slightest
tremor, concentric break of the surface,
from the rainbow’s vantage.
Just enough to stir curiosity,
a sniff, a poke,
enough to spring the snap.
Nothing sadder than a rainbow in mid-air,
regretting prior impulse.
The change is sudden, inevitable,
decisive.
Snow on Battenkill
falls in crunches,
bunches in feet to yards
high, the wisteria that bough low to the banks,
shaggy, warm under all the cold,
lilac tongues out panting,
with winter body heat,
home to dead butterfly larvae;
dome holds the sound in,
the sound out;
you can walk anywhere,
the terrain is level,
white and wet.
Though not witnessed by anyone or anything,
I left footprints in November,
in the carry along the north rise,
that held their shape and depth,
through March.
I look forward to final frost,
to clear and distinct birthing,
of all that is,
there ever was.
The future is merely supposition.
Isn’t it? The ice, the same as the dew.
I would rather choke
on the freezing waters
filled with silt from the moving,
running bottom,
than trapped in the upper layers,
locked frozen in time.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Please see here for the original Battenkill
The nougat,
the payload,
essence, Persistor,
sturdy like a solder weld,
planting me,
center of all things.
The outskirts of heaven
halo my awareness
arc the balloon-tie top
of my dome,
a distance I traverse,
easily, boldly,
with a sure,
strident gait,
leaving stars in my wake,
like glitter falling
from my sequined socks,
sparkle and glow.
Archetypal patterns
establish themselves
according to plan,
protons and photons,
“Oh My!.”
That gel,
placenta inside,
me, traces,
the shape,
nebula, I carve,
hover, envelop,
I give to,
draw from.
Soul-mate wanted:
Sanskrit,
chitlins,
Wiccan Chicana,
looking for
Banzai barrio warrior.
Who knows that she would
like to swing on a star,
carry moonbeams home in a jar.
Sitting at a small table,
eating sweet cereal,
watching early morning
cartoons, the man
in the moon,
big smiley face,
above the horizon,
compressed, telephoto,
pre-school
memory.
Th-th-th-th-th-th-that’s all folks!
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
From the beach to our summer house, you left
dark gray and barefoot prints disappearing,
a pace of one gone, every four you took,
evaporating there in the hot sun,
baking the pavement, in visible mist,
fully rendered, pointillistic, then gone …
Poof! I’m amazed you didn’t burn your soles.
You draped your long body exotically
with a wrap of sea greens, aquas, sun golds,
backdrop to the blue heather of your eyes.
Earlier, at the ocean pretending
we were the first to arrive here, this bank,
this coast side, this planet, this time around,
you turned to point, fins skimming the surface,
then turned to me, your face filled with waiting
my response, but I’d not heard the question,
as waves consumed your voice and I’ve wondered
what it was exactly you said that day.
She searches for sea shells, slowly combs sands,
then wades out waist-high; the surf erases
yesterdays’ traces, and less is no more.
She, it’s just she, shucking shells by the shore.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 