On guitar I played phrases
turned and inverted to prove
my love soars more than melody
Beyond that I can’t even
begin to remember
Uncertain where dulcet
turns somber
turn, dip, samba sways,
more nighttime, these
dazes, I stagger
Arpeggios of frozen air
trickle, trip, keep trickling
tickling my mouth, merging with spirit
erupting in steel
Solid steel
I am
immovable. I
am . . .
Chagall 2015
I told her I’m sure there’s bells
you can’t help but hear them –
There! You see?
Twin peals in echelon
waves above up in pockets
then swoops below near the prey
This close to the ground we risk
broken wings, we need to find lift anywhere
If I just let go I get aloft
I have long known how to walk on ceilings
I have sat on chandeliers
and walked through upside-down window sashes
I step from this ladder through your second-floor window
to entreat your love, float gracefully down to the ground unhurt
unscathed in defiance of gravity, grateful
graceful as a balustrade slide in white tie and tails
I win and heads lose, we embrace only these end times
not before, that was then while this merely is
I revel now and still
counting the bells –
you can’t help but hear them
Chagall 2015
Easier to float up
than glide down
I fear for crashing
unable to brake
Ascending I’m secure
push gravity
Full-massage body
peculiar underwater
Chagall 2015
With certainty I sense what’s timeless
so therefore I am, aren’t I?
It’s a light that shines forever,
a tone with no break for interval.
It’s the moment of you, the thought of you,
the underbelly of you upon my shoulders.
Within that light play fine shadows, disturbed
branches windblown in time.
The doppler of the carousel horses rise then fall
round and rise then fall again.
It is this mere one lifetime with you,
the incessant farewell of moments.
At any time you’ll be here.
At any time you’ll be gone.
Uncertainty senses this timeless
alone, aloft with no tether.
Chagall 2015
Merely an experimental malaise
spiraling numbly, likewise nimbly
the lame slither askew off the walkway
while naked dancers waltz precariously
too close to be social.
Chagall 2015
Peepers are still out this time of year
though their song comes earlier in the eve these days,
fragile, almost not there; easy to listen beyond and miss them.
The foreground caw of a big bird, the bark of a dog
on my backstage, panned far left, a flashing beep
of some truck backing up, overhead gaggles honk and recede.
In echelon wildly, we ride the updraft, dip and soar,
aerialists cum acrobats, spun but poised nonpareil, sans apparatus,
relying solely on wingspan and pin-sharp charisma.
The V is impressed with its own formation, looks down and spies itself
in the placid face of the water; a solemn unified beat of blood-pumped wings
cuts swaths in mid-air, affirms partisans aloft in the primeval current.
So many songs harmonize around me, twelve-tone hymns and patterns,
colors in sound, or maybe more like touch – the voices about and within,
caress me more than paint me; ephemeral sounds, timeless embossing of our hearts.
© Chagall 2014
Ecclesiastically contested.
Unceremoniously censored.
Perilously pared.
Piquant?
Perhaps.
Illuminatingly metro.
Respectfully nuyorican
(not – as the spell checker has suggested – Corsican).
Aggravatingly a salted one.
Flighty, from too many stairs in buildings too tall
to mention in one breath.
Cheesy?
Maybe.
But as I go,
asiago.
© Chagall 2014
A paler horse for the time
no worries at all – if any, they’re small.
They told you, I hope, that I used to bang gongs?
First let me tell you that I love
frost, snowflakes, eyelashes and somewhere – everywhere tears.
Me, I’d uphold and upend the merry, depending on
the time of day, or the time of year.
In a pale wane moon out the hourglass,
just a speckle on a wire white with choir light
on plexiglass, polished chrome and pretty barristers shuffling home
on gravel paths, they rise then crest and ride you fast to the other side,
just a belly-whop, just a jelly roll, there will never be another you
and Nat King Cole comes from window light, where everything rises and falls,
not just once or twice, but always, and forever plus a single day
Bang a gong –
uphold and upend the merry.
Sing a lilt of the will o’ the wisp.
© Chagall 2014
I don’t aspire so much as I dream
about life once lived and twice when wonderful
sparks spirited us away; just a loll, a roll across water
on our backs and bellies sliding, free-wheeling and side-winding.
Pressed for time
all the time
it seemed.
Eternal weighs us from too far off, unfulfilled not a good place to fall, these tow-away zones
are paved to hurt, no shade here or there nor
anywhere for that matter.
What will be befitting your final embellishment?
Adjustable tonal flora becomes you, as you fade away
and become it.
It’s only rock ‘n’ roll –
right?
© Chagall 2014
A bird tonight in the garden broke pattern
and let wail with a phrase much like bebop – or maybe Philly soul,
to the mutual delight and chagrin of red-breasted, blue-feathered kin
stark naked and tucked away in the greenest canopy,
who attribute it all to seduction of starlight
© Chagall 2014
Alphabet City 