We were the last,
sad you don’t remember,
the high cliffs overlooking
an ocean, I can’t recall
its color, but the salt mist
remains upon my tongue, as if
the name of a newborn, like
sparks at the edge of vision
And now we are the first to set foot
here on the softest of downs
Chagall 2019
No words for the colors my body burns
Neither primary, pastel, nor flying
Instead a conflagration, deep amber
Dark roux near burn, my soul charred flour
Equal parts air, love, and salty water
Stirred to thicken and left to cool a spell
Upon fine filament I ride to you
More than passing a glance our eyes absorb
What’s essential behind, unspoken
In search of clarion call
A prayer for forgiveness prior any act
Repentance in arrears
Chagall 2019
You remind me of someone you were, how you do that
so perfectly effortless
Evoke the we that we were
cue the salty sea air
Everything about then is beach-washed
designs, that’s how I remember
How could it be otherwise, the
other times we would soar
Just a little
bit more
We remind us
of then
Join me. Inhale – long –
and hold it gently.
© Chagall ∞
I’d once written
Why write a sonnet when a scream will do?
and now I am thinking that an opus is unnecessary
if a mere aside can convey ample poignancy.
Such uneven lines but they’re scented. Where is the real?
I remember Mary even through the haze, how steady and rock-solid
she was, I could hug her and nestle deeply there for hours, or days, spent many a lifetime contemplating her most heavenly face and rubbery delicious lips and cheeks and long stretches along the neckline; I need meaning in each moment – I suffocate otherwise. I hesitate to take the time to narrate a deeper story for fear of failing to convey anything and therefore would regret having wasted our mutual time. hers and mine. Shouldn’t we simply abandon our search? Nubile rubbing of the nubs is how angels beget – it’s allowed there within the confines of wingspans, celestial light like champagne ices me pink from head to toe, I’m a garnish to her night on the town, I dance and rock hard like the fourth horn in the section, I am simply sunglasses and quinine water atop bitters and rocks, I jiggle my shoulders in beat sometimes rather than my waist and hips, or sometimes just a nod, a tilt of the head like this – see that! Hear that? Oye! Oye, Marie? The figures are jade, intricately reptilian, self-referencing, Escher-like in their wrap-around. There are older turquoise figures that you would think would be younger. She once made me a hot drink of sweet white maize water and freshly ground cacao, sugar, without chili. I sipped the thick chocolate while she unbraided her hair and rubbed scented balm on her breast. I remember the desire to write and to play music, to create in a world so filled with creation, a desire so intense that it overwhelmed me and incapacitated me such that I was unable to respond with anything meaningful. Ambition birthed and squelched. In her presence I am inspired to leave behind some remnant, an artifact memorializing my having been here, a monument that captures the light of this day, the song of this hour, the perfume of the tilt of the sky, the spray of life from her lips when she cries out in joy, my joy is her.
© Chagall 2017
Yes – perfect – place her there,
far from the maddening roar of
the love these two share.
© Chagall 2016
She couldn’t
remember which
we’d said we’d want
so she brought both
calliopes as well
as kaleidoscopes how
wonderful they went
hand-in-hand
Chagall 2016
She started to fall so
I tilted her back to the wall
– just so – that way her heart
wouldn’t break
Some water?
I offered
she gazed through me numbly
a beam between two pairs of eyes too deep
had nothing to hide
she proffered
Is it love
or affliction
she whispered
and isn’t it just
the truest of times?
Chagall 2016
How stupid I was to think
that initials carved lower on tree trunks
were by definition made younger in time
Chagall 2016
How did we get here – do you know?
I asked uncertain of the blue
in the surrounding she replied
They’ve decided the moment repeats forever
Just you and me
I understood the nature of fate, she knew
It will have to do
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
Alphabet City 