Tag Archive: youth


Ice Chips

The night is crisp, autumnal.
Bourbon sweeter.
My son and his petite amie
at a friend’s cabin while they’re away.
With them, a bag of sweet potatoes
I grew and cured, for roasting
over the wood fire they’ll make.

Life is good.
Peepers sing earlier
than usual tonight. Harmonics from breezes
to trees to shape the glass arc of our ears
to blow gently in them.
I am yellow aged orange inflamed
dared to go red before withering.

I pray to the last gold ray of sun
there in the tall eastern trees
that refuses to say die to another day.

© Chagall 2016

Missive: Dear Sara

Like air
it’s everywhere
you breathe

Morning is life
as much as light
polishes

Now seems
to work best
at times

But i don’t know what
i don’t know – is it only
martini? (i could – as you suggest –
rhyme that with blini)

A kiss for any monday
appears on your lips
till our lips meet yet again tomorrow

How pregnant
the pause and i am
postpartum

Now indeed seems
to work best
all the time

© Chagall, 2016

Pine

I retrace the line of
her handwritten note
to make me feel
she’s still here

Chagall 2016

Sand Dance

One day long
ago I lived
with a senorita
who scored
clave-shaker
duets for money

From the window
I shouted
It appears as if
snow is starting
to fall!

She whispered dryly
Then let’s let it

Chagall 2016

I Think This Is Right, No?

Keep moving
we must follow
every drop of ray
must fall – alight
make truer yet
the glow of our skins

we are all
beautiful people
in sunset

tomorrows
wax deliciously
like sunrise – all new days

that’s what hope
looks like blind
faith keeps coming
long the day after

angle me so
I can watch
the last fade
of the light

Chagall 2016

Carved In A Tree

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

Parlay

The poems I write are like
the dollar bets my grandmother made
everyday needing something
to ride on

Chagall 2016

 

The Go-Between

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

Flat Out

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

Unfinished

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