scotch

 

My dear madam

chilled though I am I

still enjoy the icy tinge of

your grand city as I sit on the 

patio of my tiny beach abode blown

ragged by fierce ocean breezes and 

sprinkled with spray from angry waves

the morning’s weak yellow light suits me

reticent that I am I need a hound to walk 

beside me or perhaps to lope so I too might

run from token accolades not meant for me

no Earl Grey this day only a fine Scotch will do 

thrown back to burn my insides raw 

shot upon shot sears my throat I hope

for redemption but you join me bearing 

a bag of cannoli a luscious distraction of 

sugar and fat and cream and tea you

bring tea hateful builders tea but 

so soothing against my bitter loss 

©kcasady2017

vow

when you remember 

but not really you think

you remember but as you

reach back you find nothing

but vagaries and fog but you

say things like you would remember

if there was something to remember

but you don’t remember because you

can’t but you think you should remember 

every detail but they are gone folded beneath

everyday rubbish and daily detritus so common they

weigh down and blur memories into fond 

nothingness but that murk filled hole astonishes you

and you wonder even though you vowed to remember

all you do not and you can not but you dare not let 

on lest they pat your hand and kiss the top of your 

head because they too know you don’t remember 

because you can’t and you decide you 

don’t want to remember

©kcasady2017

afghan

 My dear madam

perhaps someone else should

tie my ties old habits die hard

I am not royalty I have no dresser

perhaps I need a new mirror or an 

upgrade on my spectacles that I might

discern the error of my beloved schoolboy

knot in favor of a Windsor that my four-in-hand

might disappear though its origins be posh and its

uses beyond fashion yet you call me to task and sing out

displeasure with no heed to my memories of nimble 

boyhood and exuberant youth when slight of hand and

cunning depended upon quickness and tie tying was by

necessity innate and organic and so my knot remains as

a medallion a story telling chronicle of my past which should

you desire I would gladly share perhaps one night our hands 

warmed by builders’ tea as we settle before the fire swaddled

in an afghan

©kcasady2017

purpose

 

My dear madam

earl grey with lemon tingles 

multitudinous taste buds so common

that seasoned teapots coo as tea leaves

carouse and raise a ruckus colliding with

intention bent upon releasing their souls in

pursuit of their singular purpose but add a bit of 

lapsang souchong and the teapot quiets in serious 

repose squiring the exquisite newcomers as earl grey 

bows in deference to pungent smokiness and

the masses give way to an acquired taste posh 

perhaps but do join me in a cup of milky builders shunning

leaves for the mundane bag in a hapless mug splashed 

with a douse of cold milk sprinkled by a shower of sugar

clutched in your freezing hands your body draped in

an afghan settled in front of my warm fire…

©kcasady2017

habiliments

 

My dear madam

your curiosity beguiles me your

nosiness tantalizes and charms me with

such adroitness and acumen that no choice

exists but to oblige you and find a wife from

among those who think I dress like a puppy because 

I take the first pair of trousers off 

the top of the pile of clothes accumulating in my 

boudoir since as my favorites they land in that 

order and the pile of course the pile for how 

senseless to put away garb deemed 

wearable again and how simple to 

grab my daily habiliments and

sport a tattered tee covered by a frumpy

jacket but this wife of which you speak says

you clean up well and I nod I take note and leave

©kcasady2017

goddess

 

My dear madam

who is this goddess you worship

with whom you collude tete a tete deriving

plans voluminous and fanciful creating 

a veritable amusement park full of

illusory merry go rounds and dizzying

roller coasters upon which you ride begging me 

to attend to jump on your wild fling 

a glass of wine you say when 

only a bottle will do to elevate

flirty banter into the heights of mighty discourse and

lofty rhetoric where upon age and beauty as the subject

blend into seamless panoramas of Davidian sunsets and Jacobean 

dawns but your goddess joins the fray whispering in your ear

delusional scripts while she lounges on your shoulder a thing of beauty

a Machiavellian nude pecking at your wondrous hair but as is my

wont I take your hand and s’il vous plait et non et de rien disappear

bound up in goddess’ entrails splattered as she falls back into heaven

©kcasady2017

podium

 

My dear madam

in your dreams you say and

perhaps there I should stay among

the shadows and replayed minutes the

mixed up images and words the 

nonsensical mashup blathering along your

cortex filtering through your medulla creating

epics of running naked down busy streets and

eternal circles gathering dust among book stacks

where only I as your muse sort the dribs and

drabs tossing bits here and there as they rebound

bounce recur repeat with only I as guiding master 

bringing to fruition the final piece of random

letters on a blank screen perhaps that 

should remain my soulful purpose leaving the 

recitation to others better suited to utter 

fine words punctuated by nuanced gesture though

it appears you would have me do both to which

I cry “Fie! ‘Tis unfair!” to which you offer no quarter and

insist I touch the moon on your behalf but I watch your eyes

from where I sit darting about in your sleep and I am with

you as you conjure the future while dwelling in the 

past but you take my hand walk me to the podium and 

there I stand and there I begin

©kcasady2017

pigskin

 

throw away the old 

football aging gray fraying

pigskin threads as it sits in a pile of

pine needles draped with dead spider silk

tossed by young hands blown away

from home whose fingerprints lurk invisible whose

laughter haunts its seams whose lingering

DNA mixes with tattered leather producing 

organic memories and distant reality

©kcasady2017

happy birthday

a happy birthday ditty...

 

kernels

 

My dear madam:

au contraire..

inamoratas fans hangers’ on

call them what you may but

I serve them I give them gist

on which to feed and kernels through

which to sort where upon finding the

right one they pick it up roll it around in

fingers soft with longing and desire rounding

off rough edges warming it smoothing it 

into a piece of cast gold desirous of an 

impression deep enough to accommodate my

flesh from which they pull strips as I scream my

other self through a bullhorn while they bite deeper 

and swallow their chosen bits and I sink exhausted into

a pliable heap diminished by one third but replenished 

by my ego

©kcasady2017

allure

 

too much for

too long takes a 

toll and the mind plays

with it tosses it around 

winds it up throws it back on

the fire to cook some more but

it burns and sears flesh and leaps

afire onto a platter presented once

again sporting a new form tame and

simple so approachable so beckoning

but it bites sinks its teeth into 

grey matter and synapsis sending 

currents sizzling their way deeper worming

into uncharted virgin mindfulness flushing it

out with nonsense and allure

©kcasady2017

orbit

 

an elliptical fling towards

nonsense then back around 

towards beginnings of sincerity 

and trust in a uniform and creed that

explode preconceived notions of righteousness

and enlightenment into hardened tears of 

disappointment crossed with bafflement and

chagrin snapping fragile bonds binding a sore 

heart cobbled together by silk threads and 

dangling in a web of poisoned deceit

©kcasady2017

fox

 the seventh fleet is lost and 

Russia is forgotten amidst a

shake up at Fox and fondling and

no one likes strong women who

turn their backs and walk away from

demented men and determined 

bullies who scream about trivialities

and monotony to shake things up and 

rattle terra firma to

jiggle it a bit change 

it up twist 

it around wring 

it out and all 

because of a chip of paint on an old white wheel well that 

can’t have happened the way he claimed because of

the impossible physical probability and the 

anonymity of the plates so 

he never did find out the truth and sank enveloped

by sand and mud and horror

©kcasady2017

umbrage

 

from...a letter keeps she...

loves him…she 

does...unavailable…he

leaves...she lies…he hides...not

who she says…not who he

says...deceit…delight…delude…

abridge…upbraid…umbrage…

from…a letter keeps she...

©kcasady2017

whimsical capillaries

 

the walk irons out 

creases in joints ripened with

tarnish but still willing to trot along

side the hound who lingers and 

sniffs her way keeping up with the

brisk clip meant to set a gleeful heart 

pounding pushing steamy blood through whimsical

capillaries sending the corpus into a vibrating 

frenzy drunk on oxygen but reeling towards

perfidy and doubt.

©kcasady2017

sack cloth and ashes

 
 

My dear madam

You take note of

my ankles commenting

on my black socks. How

out of character you say, not 

missing a beat of my life. You chain me to

a granite block and hoist me up for all to see my

indecorous blunder; my gauche faux pas. The

inamoratas demand a sacrifice on an

altar of haute couture; clamor for a blood 

offering of chic repartee. You remove my shoes. You

roll up my jeans. You expose my offending

feet covered in sack cloth and ashes; expecting their 

end; mourning their doom. You save me from the 

mocking hordes with a simple spell; a bug in my ear; a 

wave of your wand. I don my requisite stripes and 

colors. The commentator begins. I rest. Your smile chants under your breath. 

©kcasady2017

steamed pudding

 

lots of terrible words

get said for good cause though

the ilk of which no longer exists

and the sense of it all long since

vanished in the haze of death and 

lost memories probably for the best 

not kept simmering in the pot now 

grown cold and tarnished shoved into

the dim depths of the cupboard brought 

out and polished only for holidays and funerals

where concocted steamed puddings hide a 

delightful bite of lucky pain and broken teeth

©kcasady2017

concerto

 

So…an accordion not

an oboe not

a piano not 

by Mozart not

by Brahms or Beethoven but 

a discordant thing of 

Scandinavian descent replete with

cadenzas and three movements the

auditory oddity falls 

short of convention fails 

to provide pleasure and succor to 

a bent soul stretched in

a thousand twisted directions seeking

solace among musical notes torn from

the consciousness of finger tips skimming 

keyboards treble and bass gleaning

only noise polkas and the drone of 

post-modern muftis calling from minarets 

©kcasady2017

 

monologue

what losing it feels like…you pretend…you keep up appearances…you talk and chatter…you move easily through conversation…no one knows but you…and as you walk away smiling…you say to yourself…okay…okay…okay…not okay…not okay…under your voice…you tell your companion…things have changed…you stayed out last night…you tell them…your neighbor keeps pounding on the door…you say...but no one hears it…only you…you say goodbye…you disappear…days later you text…you return home…fine…you nurture the need to isolate…not even coffee at Starbucks sounds good…friends offer advice…go for a walk…the fresh air…the sunlight…a breeze…but it annoys you…band aids…salves…not enough to cover…to make a scab grow…too little…too late…you pull the knife out of your chest…you bleed…words…ideas…concepts…but the pounding starts again…and you need your cocoon…your nurturing quiet…so you nap…you sleep…deep in dreams…deep in nightmares…

©kcasady2017

nigglers

 

the 5 am nigglers cause

brain damage planting

hand grenades in grey

matter that explode into snippets of

yesterday who naw their

way into tomorrow drilling down to 

dreams quashing any hope replacing it 

with candor then smothering it with the truth of 

you know nothing

©kcasady2017

blaspheme

 

and the indoctrination begins

first with the children held

up to us as examples of 

perfection reading from school

papers on subjects so biblical they

grow beards and sit on mountain

tops as they expound parents and

grandparents transcend and circle

patting tiny grey heads nodding

to us in pleasure assuring

safety and all of us celebrate and

some of us commit asking

questions posing

delicate conundrums mimicking

words and sentiments bowing

down in a morass of blasphemes amidst

the stench of anathema in which

some of us float 

resisting

©kcasady2017

slippage

take love

yes take it 

let it 

fall off the page 

letter by letter each

demanding desire clinging

begging to stay clawing

leaving scratches of

times new roman in

bold italic remnants of 

iambic pentameter sonnets dropped

into bloody puddles of adjectives slitting the

throats of nouns while broken metaphors seek

solace hiding in rushes of verbs crashing through 

white space as you reach out to save them they

slide through your fingers

©kcasady2017

dirt bowl

 

look at the Yard the 

dirt bowl full of holes dug 

by the hound hoping to reach

China but instead hits a plastic pipe that

looks like a dinosaur bone only 

it spews water instead of marrow

so a rusted red wagon grows aided

by a tree stump so deformed it writhes 

with joy no longer violated by chlorinated

pool backwash flooding the rosemary and

ancient roses so old their petals turn to

wrinkled skulls falling to the ground crushing

concrete into bits and bricks into particles so 

you no longer give a shit and you take a 

sprig of mud and go home

©kcasady2017

recursive catastrophe

fiuriosity kills the cat while
the bunny chases the dog and
a big hound it is but
no matter how fast it runs the
the bunny runs faster so
the hound chats up a tortoise and
bribes it with stale bread to
challenge the annoying bunny to a
race because the hound knows the end of
the story and imagines tasty
bunny stew but the squirrels
get wind of what is afoot and
roll the tortoise down a hill where
Jack picks it up so it promptly pees on
Jill who hands her skirt out to dry but it
starts to rain and she steps in a puddle that
fills her boot with water so she drowns but
floats down a ditch to the sea where her
entrails pollute the reefs so the fish all die and
Earth twerks and stops running around the sun
©kcasady2017

compound words

matzo ball

yes though

matzo lives on its own

singular and self-reliant

ball too but

put them together

and there appears 

matzo ball

thing of beauty a

culinary delight a

unique entity a

one-of-a-kind specialty

non-duplicatable and incomparable

two words printed 

matzo space ball but

only one word heard or

thought as in matzo ball and

oy such thinking such

imagining such

tasting as in

Sam savors his matzo ball a

next-to-none

transcendent experience but 

bouncy ball rubber ball red ball blue ball

no though

matzo balls indeed run the risk of

bouncing or turning into rubber but

Sam likes a bouncy 

red rubber ball but hardly savors it

nothing definitive

ad infinitum

recursive little buggers

exist by the

millions billions trillions of

round colored spheres 

no story here bud just

keep moving along

©kcasady2017

Once

Once

beard trimmed

hair dyed

grin

always a grin

behind the glasses

horn rims

roam cerulean eyes

Upon

a wide face

sculpted with words

knowledge and

brilliance

so from the mouth

comes

A

tale so strange

of woe so elevated

and reminders so

poignant that

no one remembers the

Time

when two bodies joined

beating sans succor and

flailed and floundered and

ended

©kcasady2017

failed stress

heart 

beat heart

rush heart

    whoosh

heart

healthy heart

happy heart

     thud

heart

race heart

stress heart

     break

heart 

quiet heart

faint heart

     still

©kcasady2017

Elegy

stood on tippy toes

atop a spinning ball

arms akimbo     flailed

body tilted              floundered

head over heels         bounced

once twice

rebounded

rolled

still

©kcasady2017

Recipe

Start with a rift

     a deep cut

     a sliced heart

     of lettuce

     of artichoke. Nay…

Of human flesh

Touched

     it flinches

Startled

     it begs for relief

Exposed

     It searches for cover. Nay...

Fill it with concrete

Stitch it with copper wire

Prepare a dough

Shape a wall

Bake it at 1000 degrees

Build a rampart. Nay…

A fairy castle

     green

          dispossessed

.              spellbound. Nay…

A citadel

     gray

          choking

               gasping. Aye…

Start with a rift

©kcasady2017

Couched

It sags in

one spot

at the end

where I sit

And it tells stories

of better days and burning incense and

candles

Of Christmas cookie crumbs and hidden nickels

of lost rings and drafts of milky builder’s tea and

sips of wine

It gossips about cousins and ne'er do wells and illicit love

children

It snickers at its own jokes about muffled farts

and oversized bottoms and the occasional spills and

cat vomit

It cradles me

where it sags

as I sleep

in one spot

at the end

                            

©kcasady2017