The forecast missed her small tornadoes
she of far beyond uncharted water
right-side up the least preferred way
to travel, she’d grab my cheek to help me
to navigate warm currents among shallows
where safe is illusion cast by shoals
luminous looming jutting crags
on sky as ground, with God as witness
her hand held up to Nowhere running wild
through tiny cracks in our being
Chagall 2016
Must love be a foregone conclusion
that precedes the need for dark-chocolate cherry cordials
or do those magnificent trifles warrant a daily place in our lives
independent of any lofty notions like love?
Chagall 2016
How stupid I was to think
that initials carved lower on tree trunks
were by definition made younger in time
Chagall 2016
We scream at each other
we are art – some say
Whisperers
I hear you
Beat me purple baby
till I’m plumb
Just a kiss away
we’re whisked away
some cabaret
I stand
corrected
I lie
in and on and about
green meadows
Till we fall
softest of all
about them
Chagall 2016
So adept her foiling the mesh like that
snared prolific beneath too many stories
nearly bad endings
Some torque at the hip wrenches her thrusts
she needs to invigorate tightening tendons
to stretch wider slowly, more lazy laterally
So all is forgiven though all is so lost
also and again yet again
I watch her in profile, breathlessly arced
above her off-shoulder, a continuum of rounded
embankment, her body cut luscious
arcades where we play bathed solely
high windows tint green
afternoon trees, warm breezes
the eve of special days
Chagall 2016
The poems I write are like
the dollar bets my grandmother made
everyday needing something
to ride on
Chagall 2016
I told her
as you had asked
that she knew nothing of moons
that it was waxing and gibbous
and she replied to tell you that
you are an idiot as anyone can see
that it’s nothing of the sort
but indeed instead waning crescent
She added
it comes with old age
then she gave me this kiss and this locket
she said that you’d know
Chagall 2016
I’ve no hatches to batten
down and round I go
in a spin
ancient
dark funk
Goodnight to all along Battenkill
(frigging spellchecker never heard of the place nor the river)
How many pounds of flower
does it take to hold one down
and round I go
in a spin
some sort of voodoo
I take it
I gather
assemble all I can
we take us with us
by the tree on my count
let’s mark time briskly
we escape
one by
one
Regather
two
by two
slithering down
and around I’m gone
in a spin
merely light minutes
away
Chagall 2016
My heart, adept at somersaults,
sticks the perfect landing.
The pain in my knees though tells me that
it’s not that long till fall.
So tape me up
to brace me tight
in time for another go.
Madly to the springboard
without stopping to plant
I soar of my own desire.
I emulate feathers floating
till ground.
To lie there
spying clouds move
up and down as well as left and right.
In motion emotionally always
forever truly yours.
Chagall 2016
I came across
my draft of a poem
started a while back
It reads as if
we’d been interrupted
for all it says is
She
Chagall 2016
Alphabet City 