Aaron

Karen rhymes with Aaron 

your namesake 

Your grandfather who died years before your birth

a photo shows him standing in front of his paint store

the immigrant from Lithuania

Leibovitz they called him

until they didn’t 

he started a new business sporting his new name 

the Levine Leather Company that

passed on to your Uncle Sam

and to which you made many visits

until you didn’t 

because nothing remained of it but the 

round handled shoemaker knives that your mother used to cut vegetables in her kitchen 

©Karen Casady 2021

newsflash

new play discovered by a 

famous/non-famous playwright 

whose work is 

familiar/not-familiar 

to folks who 

attend/do-not-attend

live/as-opposed-to-dead theater

or to those who choose/not-choose to 

read/not-read the

written/un-written words 

put to paper by an earnest/non-earnest 

young/old wordsmith who 

never expected/unexpected to be

considered worthy/unworthy of recognition 

© Karen Casady 2021

darius

your finger goes down the page

the screen the page screen screen page

lands on Darius a satrap of the Persian Empire

of course you know Darius but he’s not

a satrap

he drives an aircab

and what hell is an aircab

moreover what the hell is a satrap 

define the latter as an provincial governor of ancient Persia

okay then

duly noted

no aircabs for him

flying carpets instead?

no aircabs for modern day Darius

a regular cab perhaps

perhaps it flies 

and do you really know Darius

and does it matter

only if you want to order from the Darius menu

in which case you’d take the ancient guy

more daring as Dariuses go

and it would require an aircab to seek him out

off you go then…

©Karen Casady 2021

 

fandom

My Dear Sir

The glow is gone

Oh…the interest remains

Though now it merely simmers

and comes to a boil only infrequently 

the temperature instantly dialed back

Gone are the days when every syllable that tumbled from your lips required scrutiny 

Every word needed examination for its meaning

Your whole history memorized for subsequent analysis and discussion 

Now one is hard pressed to even remember current and past projects let alone what is proposed for the future 

You have achieved your goal and moved far from your beginnings 

You quietly operate from behind coming forth only when suitable and required

Kudos to you. The satisfaction must be immense. 

But the flame is dying back

No more innumerable postings and earnest discussions

Though the diehards still trudge through the past prizing any new information and images

And I still follow them marking each and every entry not just a with a terse thumbs up but with a nostalgic heart

 

My Dear Madam

It was all too much

Though at the beginning the attention fulfilled a need

The one that comes from never feeling good enough

Hard to believe right? Me?

And was it ever fixed by all the accolades? Perhaps. Or perhaps just buried or maybe transformed 

But it all got so old

Even getting married couldn’t rid me of my devoted fandom

So I began to withdraw

To make myself less accessible 

Not playing into and along with the giggles and the banter

I just wanted more time with my family

And the privacy that comes with status

Now the hordes have dissipated 

The numbers down to just a few 

Like you my dear madam

Always steadfast always there

Reminding me from whence I’ve come and ever guiding me towards the future

Your nostalgic heart balances me and creates the context of my being

©Karen Casady 2021

junk

dig deep into the junk drawer

find the answers

reach to the back

dust embedded under finger nails

catch a finger on an open pin

leave a drop of blood

schmeared across the wooden bottom

feel for the empty ring box

next to the pile of unsewn patches

intended for a long-gone pint-sized jeans jacket 

scooch past the tiny notebook of 

now meaningless secrets 

seeking a small packet 

bound with a plastic pendent of nothingness

there but now not

perhaps never there

one of those vanished things

existing only in stories and memories 

© Karen Casady 2021

to do

call Steve

Steve who

all manner of Steves need calling

a call to share information 

a call to put aside

procrastination 

what will be said

all business of course but for

the underlying current of

hidden whispers sought through

words dropped here and there

random signifiers of misplaced intention and longing

 

quicken sucks

quicken what

a massive humble-jumble of

misstated data and numbers

endless duplicated entries 

never in sync with the heart

lest it quicken at the mere thought 

of calling Steve under the earnest pretense of requesting informal tech support over a cup of coffee

 

fix the mirror

that one day

for no particular reason

just fell off the wall and shattered 

leaving a raw blank spot

peppered with old glue and vague markings

making it difficult to apply lipstick 

for the informal business meeting

with Steve to discuss the misery of

quicken while 

noting each pending heart beat

seeking hints of ardor and passion

 

clean the fish tank

suck up the goop

toss in quicken

left over heart beats

hidden whispers

and procrastination 

noting the eyes of the guppies

as they see nothing but fish food flakes

©Karen Casady 2021

message

You’ve started seeing other women. I suppose that’s only natural. It’d be easy to say it’s only been a year. I’ve known other widowers to wait. Maybe five years. Maybe ten. Just to give themselves time to grieve. To acclimate to their new reality. But knowing you you’ll probably say that you grieved through the years that you cared for me as I slowly died. And that makes sense, I guess. But I wouldn’t know. I was too sick to grieve losing you. To reach into the reality that you’d be gone from me too. Yes, even in one’s own death there is grief but there comes a point when one can think only of the moment and then the next wondering which will be the last and what it will feel like to plummet into dark nothingness where the before life and the afterlife blend into the perfect final state of everlasting null and void. But you, you have started seeing other women. How can you even stand it? It must be vacuous; ongoing flat conversation tapering off into fewer and fewer words. You held my hand as I slipped into nether realms. And then you let go. I still seek your touch but I am devoid of my senses. I have to say that I do favor the last one.  But I will find a way to keep you to myself.

©Karen Casady 2021