At times, I miss the living as much as those who've passed cc: Chagall 2022
Tag Archive: separation
the balloon from your party still holds its helium long after you're gone it bobs there yet in the ceiling corner its long rainbow tassel a curlicue of color in time it will slide down the wall without promise of rising anymore all the best wishes of the day flattened and peeling inert cc: Chagall 2021
I swear I’ll be there for you downstream
where the rocks are smoothed by time.
© Chagall 2017
Near a century ago, cousins
from the old country had written
to her, my grandmother, to tell her of
new life, love, old life, and death,
she’d missed, the chronology of
the beautifully handwritten cursive
on paper unlike any I’ve ever seen
in size and touch, with a scent of
many years contained there in the folds and
the unfolding of many reads, here and there
a letter blurred, the errant pen of
the author or a teardrop.
© Chagall 2016
Where do all
the tumbleweeds go
after they’ve blown away?
Where do all
the scorpions hide
during the rain storm?
Watch me now,
James Brown said,
watch me as I bust a move.
Radio
even back then
out there in the desert.
© Chagall 2016
I don’t even like pea pods
so stop saving them
for me.
© Chagall 2016
In emoticons we’ve driven
past LoLs and pensive ellipses
we’ve elided and skirted the truth
’cause brevity’s better, YKWIM?
I tap and bouquets appear amidst snowmen
who melt . . . batt’ry low . . . fade away
© Chagall 2015
And in the end
she said you’re my favorite people
You kept things bright when lights were low
you were always there to let me know
Those hard times shared by all
are not so hard at all
O’ what a life!
I remember dancing with you all
a slow dance, a quick step
Strange I never heard
the music change
O’ what a life
isn’t it a crazy life
When everything you know
is still here when you go
© Chagall 2014
A dark corridor
the light divides in two banks
shade under the bridge
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
We tentatively tiptoe past
the quiet sleepers
who must choose
selfishness at the others behest
or at the expense of selflessness.
One or the other,
not both.
In a forest in mist
I release your hand,
a vain lapse; each moment
you’re gone
I bleed on shards
of Venus’ looking glass.
So quiet
they stir,
we feel
them stir
us to fall
face-down
on a bed
of spikerush.
Crawl along quietly now.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 