I feel so inept;
I do not know what we call
this time before stars.
Twilight?
This place without time –
rimmed cold blue in ice,
trillions of bright sparkles
for each shiny object.
Light still holds to treetops;
the axis of the world is true,
once more affirms the autumn of promise.
© Chagall 2014
I am notably missing from the photo,
this portrait of me is instead now a landscape,
the foreground that should have been
a background had I actually arrived
on the scene. I wonder whose index finger
pressed down the shutter. Of all the proofs,
I like this one best, it instills a sense
of the imminent, careful lighting, edgy compose,
something’s about to happen, to jump at you from the frame,
you feel it.
Instead I order
a life-size print
of me in white hat
buried up to my forehead
blinded by the bank
of new-fallen snow.
© Chagall 2014
I have so much to say today
so I shake you to wake you
Get up! and I’ll tell you
of life that bursts
to get inside
Your mind and your heart,
need I mention the soul?
If indeed there are
such things
Fragile things that come and go
once, or twice, I don’t really know
though I do when it’s only me
I dreamed that I once was atop a hill
wondering which way was down
so I followed the cooler breeze
Was that you where the sand ran
dry to wet at the edge of the dense brush
opening wide to the sea?
Of all that we were and all that we are
in prayer that we’ll someday be
Wake up! I’ve so much to tell you
© Chagall 2014
Despite this loss
of madness
I look forward
to crazy again
© Chagall 2014
Can you go organic
and not have comments like
Hey, what’s with the gnats?
© Chagall 2014
I thought I probed the depths
for the right words
to find I am essentially unaware
that I am twice removed
from the truth below the bubbles
but buoyant
despite a payload
of heavy ballast
I’m a hale and hearty
bottom feeder
who really isn’t
at all
just a background hush
an undertow
a current
an eddy
a relic
of implicit order
the mystery around
the actual
around the real
I name
through words
I’ve probed
in search
of nameless things
© Chagall 2014
I grabbed her off the vine
this Colorado Potato Beetle
and immediately considered
crushing her in two or three.
The damage she had wrought
was absolute, death warranted.
But I decided to send a message
to the others out there hovering.
I held her by her stupid shell
and dangled her high there
above the earth covered with
dead blossoms and barren leaves.
I brought my face to hers and
I told her very distinctly:
Stay away from my Yukon Golds
if you want to live – you get me?
And tell the others to do the same.
I squeezed so she’d get the point
then released my fingers and watched
her fly away, a tiny ball of copper.
© Chagall 2014
Alphabet City 