Ponder

Burn

Hot desert winds blow

Wildfires burn

Out of control

Birds fly going nowhere

Feathers blown smooth

Rendered useless

Forward motion denied

By swirling dust bowl heat 

Blue jean clad legs bake

Cloth clinging to seared skin

As scorched limbs search for respite shade

On a cracked yellow patio

Heaving with parched nausea 

While gritty eyes squint 

Seeking a purple blue vision 

Of clawing hissing greenery 

Enslaving twigs scratching at windows

Demanding entrance 

Etching sacrilegious patterns on the panes

And the hound sniffs the air

Confused by flustered smokey scents

Body chucking their way into her

Hot dry snout

But the brown mud hole yard remains calm

Skulking under the radar

Barely kissed by movement

Last day of April 

Waiting for May

©kcasady2014

Dear Children

Dear children

Your job is to keep me young

Please do everything possible to make it so

Keep snapchatting pictures of your new nail color and turning me on to new fandoms

Keep sharing 90s indie rock and facetiming with me

Above all

Keep humoring me

Even if I am forty years older than you

I like feeling cool even though I probably am not

It’s nice to appear hip to other moms

Who don’t have a clue about instagram

Or to become the Iphone maven to old flip phone users

I rather like it when my fellow 20-something tutors

Say I never to cease to amaze them when I share that

I’m done with neon pink hair extensions

So passé

So even when I am a really old lady

Grey and decrepit

To the degree that I am able

Please make sure to keep me young

Whatever that may look like

I don’t have a clue

I am not there yet but I will be

Inevitability steps in

Like it or not

And if my memory fails me

Please tell the world that you know I remain young in my heart and soul

And when I am gone

Please tell everyone how I stayed young because of you

©kcasady2014

Rumble

A rumble

Distant

Dropping from the sky

Echoing from its dark vault

Vague and pulsating

So subtle 

The hound barely heard it

But her ears pricked up

She craned her long neck

Trying to sense its source

A deep throated growl

Rolling out against the clouds

Kids count one one thousand

Two one thousand

Between the lightening and the thunder 

Laughing through dreadful storms

Making light of drenching rain

While imagining pending doom

Of a squadron of ancient propeller airplanes

Droning through thick choking air 

Bombardiers tightening grips

Squinting through their sights 

Releasing deadly hail upon their enemies

A welcome sight to cadaverous prisoners of war

Straining to see through dark swollen eyelids 

Allowing themselves a momentary sigh of relief

As the ground shakes beneath their cages

From the bowels of the earth 

As tectonic plates shift

Punching each other

Who will win this battle of magma and slag

Cloaking continents in a fresh crust

As buildings crumble upon shrieking bodies 

And the rumble

From somewhere 

Drifts back to nowhere 

And the hound goes back to sleep

©kcasady2014

Truth

Lies belay the truth

Replaces it with myth

That ripens into folklore

Truth adheres to nothing 

Heedlessly retreating 

Breaking into the tiniest of molecules

Floating noiselessly

Drifting further apart

Until time casts it out

And the universe replaces it with nothing

©kcasady2014

Money Speaks

Someone said her mother never wanted to get pregnant

Fear kept her from that state

The dread of child birth

The discomfort of carrying a baby

Or was it mental imbalance

As her father said

The early shock treatments she endured

Hoping to put her mind back together

Both perhaps

The imbalance causing an unfounded dread

Public agencies declaring her too irrational for approval

Resorting then to the secret world of private adoptions

Where no guidelines existed for proving worthiness

And only money spoke

©kcasady2014

Inamoratas

Dear sir

Really you must be stopped

Before you've run out of parts to play

The ones you like

Where you can be quirky

Showcase your physicality

Where intellect conspires with charm

And you use your enticing grin to fool and befuddle

Where the myth of you leaves your singular audience exhausted 

And your manfulness folds up and goes home

Really sir

You must be stopped

You leave behind a deep swath piled with unfinished inamoratas

©kcasady2014

Dark Corners

Please don’t channel your mother

She’s not wanted here

At her sister’s funeral

We didn’t like her

Dead or alive

Please don’t channel your mother

Her spirit taints all it touches

Brings us down

Clouds our eulogies

Shows us where we come up short

Please don’t channel your mother

She speaks truth

Says things we don’t want to hear

Her presence sheds light into our dark corners

Please don’t channel your mother

Don’t let her out

Tell her to stay quiet

We do not wish to abandon our lies

©kcasady2014

Hear Ye

Even I am relieved that the ordeal is over

That she finally died

The process so magnified that it spilled over everywhere

Young great grandchildren sang songs to her

Picnicking at her bedside

Adult grandchildren held vigil

Snuggling close

Freeing the even older adult children for a breather

All eulogized

Hear ye

Hear ye

We did all these things for her

Hear ye

Hear ye

She spent her last two weeks in a morphine induced coma

Freed from cancer pain

Perhaps freed from loving attention

My mother died in an ambulance with the attendant praying for her

She didn’t die alone

Jews are not supposed to die alone

My cousin said her newly dead mother had the best life of all her sisters

You might be right I say back

Your mother had all the trimmings

Adoring grandchildren and great grandchildren

A full life of estimable acts

My mother

A brilliant independent soul

Is buried alone 

Not near her husband or her parents

But serenely surrounded by other dead Jews

So she can kibitz without strings attached

Perfect I say to my cousin

Just perfect

©kcasady2014

White Hair

The departed spends her first night in her grave 

Tucked in by relatives and friends

Each tossing three shovelfuls of dirt upon her coffin

A gesture of pure kindness

One for which there can be no repayment 

While the white hairs stood and watched 

Too old to lift even the tiniest bits of soil

Imagining their dead compatriot listening from within her eternal cocoon 

Watching for her hovering soul

Waiting for it to fly free

All the while counting the moments till their turn

Wondering by whose hands their graves will be filled

©kcasady2024

Handout

The King of Persia arrives on time

The Queen of Sheba fashionably late

He saves the table in the shade

Her complexion susceptible to sun

The King wears beige Armani suits

The Queen prefers blue jeans and silver jewelry

He wishes she would be a bit less casual

She feels regal in anything she wears

They drink coffee

Preparing to receive their subjects

The King nods

The Queen sometimes speaks

The poor crazies know of his generosity

They approach for a handout

The Queen looks to the side

Disdain on her face

The King gives the expected doles

Waving the minions away with a flourish

Every day the Queen heaves a sigh of relief

Hands the newspaper to the King

Both sip their coffee

Occasionally looking up to survey their realm

©kcasady2014

Dung Beetle

Dear sir

Please tell me why you need a therapist

Perhaps too much

Too soon

There are the

Nuclear perks

Splendid

Sumptuous

Plentiful

Unforeseen and lovely

But alongside the

Inconvenient annoyances

Unwanted attention

Microscopic examination

Brooding over the impossible desire to accommodate

And the difficult decisions ahead

Stay or go

Fly to greater heights

Soar to extraordinary

Shedding veracity

Or remain unexpected

By means of unpredictable honesty

And idiosyncratic quirkiness

Hovering just above unusual

Well sir

God speed

May your journey be mindful

And your process abundant

Dotted with awkward rewards and startling revelations

May you dig like a dung beetle

Past your quivering exoskeleton

Laying fertile eggs in palpable tissue

Finally encircling truth

©kcasady2014

Black and Yellow

Dull day

Couch day

Headache day

Too much birthday day

Black day

Yellow day

Nauseating day

Needed a big rest day

Long day

Nap day

Surreal dream day

Eyes closed all day day

Looking at nothing day

Blank mind day

Glad of the quiet day

Sorry it is now night day

©kcasady2014

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to me

My natal birthday

On this day

April 18

One of my mothers gave birth to me

One week later

My other mother picked me up

My birthday history begins there

A long time ago

This morning

I wanted to cry

Because

No birthday cake

It’s Passover

Friday breakfast buddies out of town

Bad timing

And I’ve gotten too old to sleep with gorgeous young men

Darn 

So I took myself out for a birthday walk with my hound

Had a pleasant birthday shower

Went to a birthday meeting of like-minded spiritual people

Enjoyed a birthday soy latte complements of Starbucks

My friend Nik presented me with birthday flowers

And the list goes on

No need to cry

The day given to me

Worked

Birthday dinner and theater

Alas still no birthday cake

But birthday Caesar salad

Birthday chicken piccata

Affogado for my birthday dessert

Book of Mormon for birthday entertainment 

Usually

I get to see my birthday

Once a day

At 4:18

If I remember to look

Today

My phone said

April 18

For twenty four hours

Nice

©kcasady2014

Null and Void

Perhaps I'm inured to it

Seasoned

A little bit too familiar

The old ones keep dying

Been through it before

Sadly

Knowing what to expect

The comments about long life

The brave remarks about the death

The requisite love and adoration

The war stories of caring for the old and frail

But past the cynicism 

Underneath 

Not too far below the surface

Exists a sense of wistfulness

Of longing to go back

To when the old ones were in their prime

When they buffered us 

The next generation

When their homespun faces dotted holiday dinners

The young ones assured of no change

Certain of continuity and always

Only a single old one still lives

For her

At 97 continuity disconnects and always becomes never

Time scampers quickly

Exhibiting an agility no one can stop

We younger ones step up

Reluctantly dotting funeral tables

with our taut faces

As we shield the next ones

Taking our turn

Walking involuntarily toward null and void

©kcasady2014

With An Out Stretched Arm

Sitting at the family Seder

I look around

Liking the people

Some my cousins

Some folks I've never seen before 

Sharing the paschal lamb

As we are bid in the bible

Telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt 

I am obliged to drink four cups of wine

A ritual I'll gladly follow

Perhaps adding in a couple more

Then as the People of the Book

With our reputation on the line

We begin discussing

Flexing our intellects

Flying free from the rigors of observance

We speak of this and that

Mostly Jewish topics 

Allegedly relevant to Passover

The holocaust

And where was the God who

Brought us forth from Egypt

Rained plagues upon our oppressors

Parted the Red Sea and drowned Pharaoh's legions

But even still

The Six Million died at the hands of the Nazis

The wise Seder pundits offer no answer

And I think we should be praying

Practicing our rituals

Upholding our traditions 

Following the Haggadah

Our road map

The book that 

Prescribes the order of the Seder

Prompts us when to break the matzah

Open the door for Elijah

Eat sweet charoset mixed with bitter herbs

And when to drink the wine

Because my old aunt died today

My mother's sister

She nearly made 95

My bitter herbs came early 

Already dipped in salt water

I do not need to debate

Hate

Anti semitism

Zionism

Palestine

I do need prayer

Friendly conversation

A holiday meal

A bit of ritual structure

And the third and fourth glass of wine

Now

©kcasady2014

Veteran

Today he was gone

The room was empty

Devoid of the young veteran

Sitting at the table

Lap top humming

Working

On something

Perhaps a paper

A resume

Earnest in demeanor

Serious

Accomplishing his task

But today he was gone

That quite handsome

Busy young man

Very young

Too young

A veteran

Of what

Iraq

Afghanistan 

Comrades dead

IEDs

Snipers

Friendly fire

But today he was gone

Hopefully not dead

Yet

Perhaps called up again

Another tour

A trip to exotica abroad

Maybe this time safely to Germany or Japan

Or probably he just finished his paper

©kcasady2014

Choose

Babe or bitch

Which will it be

Pick one or the other

Choose 

Bitch

Strong willed

Loud mouth

Truth sayer

Babe

Cute

Flirty

Curvy

Okay

Say it...

Sexy

If you called me a babe

I’d fall out of my chair

Oh I might be a bit cute and flirty

Maybe even curvy and sexy

But I'd know you lied

A babe I am not

Don’t flatter me

Don’t bullshit me

Just tell me what you want

Then if you called me a bitch

Well I just might take it as a compliment

©kcasady2014

Persona

Resilience

This dying aunt

This last connection to her mother

Bound up together 

Tied by a complicated twisted chord

This dying aunt whom everyone loved

Her grandchildren

Her great grandchildren

Perhaps even her children

This dying aunt who most unlovingly loved her

Upon whom her mother heaped human tribute

Stripping the golden soul of her daughter

And burning it to appease her baby sister

This dying aunt cloaked in feigned martyrdom

For always doing the right thing

Smugly watched the sacrifice 

Convincing her latent admirers that the sky was red

But the sky fought back hard

With its drenching blue eyes

Though sometimes

Thunderous deep grey green 

Crying out its painful yellow tears 

Breathing blue again

This dying aunt

Old

Wrinkled 

Frail

Now unaware

But perhaps dreaming of

A red sky infused with blue

©kcasady2014

Tearing Up

Old tales of dead friends

She smashed into an icy killer tree, bled out

So no invitation to her grown up embryo’s wedding

Life, it keeps going

New tales of pancreatic cancer and 

Soon to be dead friends

A shared brita water purifier

The daily death watch reminder 

Current tales of anger

A screaming phone call

Drenched in unresolved fury

At his nearly dead mother

Some days the tears just drip

The silt backs up

Oozes out

Down grey cheeks

Leaving invisible salty trails

Nose runs

Eyes get gooey

And for what

©kcasady2014

Pink Tutu

She couldn’t save her

Nobody could

It was an impossible job to fulfill

She danced as fast as she could

Wearing shiny patent leather tap shoes then

Tiny dainty ballet slippers accented by frilly pink tutus

She played piano sweetly

The notes floating around the house

Attaching themselves to Clemente sonatinas and Mozart sonatas then

Recitals filled with Schumann and Bach

She read hundreds of books

Journeying though thousands of fantastic worlds

Keeping up a running travelogue then

Earned decent grades

Had good friends

Still she couldn’t save her

The sweaty hand always on her arm

While walking down long halls

Or through the mall

The anxiety kept barely beneath the surface

Your mother was never as happy as when she brought you home her aunt said

The baby that was supposed to fix her

Bring her joy and normalcy

The girl child charged with those herculean tasks

Fix your mother

Make her better

Fill her world with joy

Crowd out the angst

But she couldn’t save her

Perhaps to the disappointment of others

Always put to the test

Do it small blond girl they’d say

Make your mother happy

We demand it

But she couldn’t save her

No one could

Not a tiny baby

Not a small child

She tried

Unwittingly

Just by being and doing

Unknowingly knocking her young head against an impenetrable wall

And one day

At eight years old

Her mother told her that she'd have to get herself ready and off to school all on her own

Mrs. Glazer doesn’t get up for Gary in the mornings any more she told her and I am not getting up for you

And so she fixed her own breakfast

Packed her lunch

And got herself to school on time

Never knowing how odd that was

Thinking nothing of it

Just doing it

Being independent

But she still couldn’t save her

©kcasady2014

Coming Up Short

And she’s not dead yet

At least not as far as she knew

Someone would call her she hoped

She had not been to see her dying aunt

Never could find the time

Always easy to come up with an excuse

And then she'd think

Pay a visit

Do it out of respect for your dead mother

Do it as her proxy in this life

Maybe

But perhaps not

She’d spoken to her cousin

Should I visit her she’d asked

No point he said

She’s not aware of her surroundings

No point indeed

She hadn’t seen her in a year

Not since the last family funeral

Her aunt sat next to her holding a glass of wine

Supping on secrets and confessions she'd said

Your mother was never as happy as she was when she brought you home

Spilling a bit of claret with her words

Of course she’d thought

Why not

Tis the job of an adopted child to make her new mother happy

At all times

Never wavering

Because to do otherwise might have dire consequences

Still she knew she'd be terribly sad when her aunt died

Not out of love

Not out of loss

But because a touch point with the past will have disappeared

A reach back in time vanished

A voice of family history gone

She’d never asked her aunt about her adoption

Her answer could never be trusted

Too many filters

Too much baggage

Among her cousins she was the only blond with tiny breasts

Not a balabusta like the rest of the Jewish women of her family

An outsider then

Welcomed 

Judged

Compared

Usually coming up short

Of course she’d attend the funeral

And the gathering afterwards

Putting her head together with her cousins

Talking about this and that

Remembering

Chatting up her aunt

But a visit…

©kcasady2014

Red Sky

The sky is red she whispered to her daughter 

Red from the beginning

Since the creation of the world

When matter came together 

Forming our globe

Mixing the elements

Bending the heavens to the scarlet vault above our heads

The sky is blue she whispered to her mother

The sky wraps us in ruby curtains she said to her daughter

Pregnant with crimson rain

Drenching us with sanguine droplets of dew

Soaking our clothes

Coloring us russet

Transforming us into ripe cherries

The sky is blue she said to her mother

The sky glowed vermillion at night she shouted at her daughter

Dotted with rose stars and a cerise moon

Through the darkness our garnet faces glittered

Wine flushed from claret and burgundy

As we danced naked beneath the bloodshot cosmos

The sky is blue she shouted at her mother

And strode away fading into cerulean haze

©kcasady2014

Right Sized

Her battle was not lost

She still stands today

They never gave it a name

The illness that nearly struck her down

It’s a crap shoot she’d say

A guessing game

Some win

Some lose

Roll the dice

All or nothing

It took nearly two years

Surgeries, radiation, chemo

Leaving one dead kidney

A digestive tract loping along on scars

And the perpetual question

Is it back?

She’s cancelled her future medical appointments

What’s the point she says

Nothing they can do if they find something

So she lives

Travels

Stays at five star resorts

Spoils herself

Her son

Her husband

My every second day phone calls have stopped

No longer necessary

But then

As now

I do not discuss with her the shit storms that kick up in my life

Seemingly serious matters right sized when held up to mortality

I have my health

I face only quality problems

Things I’d deal with everyday

Twenty-four seven

Grateful

For the breath to work through them

©kcasady2014

Queen Esther

Leibe

Love in Yiddish

Esther 

After the Queen of Persia

Leibe Esther

Her Jewish name

Given in the tradition of her ancestors

Called out in the synagogue at her baby naming

Randomly chosen by the rabbi

Yiddish sentimentality

Loaded on top of her American name

Her real name

The one she went by every day

Except at Sunday school

Where each kid went by their Hebrew name

Her teacher crowned her Esther

Changing her Yiddish moniker

To understandable Esther

Hebrew Esther 

Biblical Esther

Savior of the ancient Jews of Persia

Forcing unwanted heroism upon her

She never saw herself as Esther

And even less as Leibe

That sounded like Libby

A musty smelling babushka 

Grey haired 

Plump

Sharp tongued

Thrusting the weight of the shtetl not love upon her

Then one day her aunt

An old Zionist

In whose apartment Golda Meir had once stayed

Told her she could just be Karen 

A ray of sunlight in Hebrew

And the ancient queen of babushkas vanished in the brightness

©kcasady

Haiku

Wailing Wall

L’hitraot

In Hebrew means

See you again

Not goodbye

And that is what she said

But that is not what happened

Because even though she said l’hitraot

She never saw him again

Her Israeli paratrooper

Usurper of her virginity

That summer on the kibbutz

Tall and handsome

Dark wavy hair

Smooth strong body

Piercing blue eyes

Just the way she liked her men

Her cousin had called him black

Like the blacks of your country she’d told her

Because of his Kurdish heritage

But she the young idealist American college student

Summer visitor to the land of milk and honey 

Wanted no part of that racist point of view

And not until she’d reached mature adulthood did she understand

That the Kurdish Jews of Iraq

Keepers of the ancient language of Aramaic

Mountain people

Goat herders and wool dyers

Uneducated

Unsophisticated

Unlike the urban Jews of Baghdad

Became the underdogs of Israeli society

But she’d left a note in a cracked brick of the Wailing Wall

The last remainder of the Second Temple in Jerusalem

A place where Jews go to mourn its destruction

Get married

Pray

In keeping with tradition

She’d tucked a small piece of paper into its ancient rocks

Asking God for a great summer

And he’d sent her Yohoshua Eli

Her delightful love

She spoke a bit Hebrew and he a bit of English

Enough words for their wondrous purpose

Hot slow dusty kibbutz afternoons

Napping

Loving

Teaching each other

Finding enough youthful common ground that

When they parted at the end of the summer

She gave him a necklace

Her name in golden Hebrew letters

And said l’hitraot

Not goodbye

©kcasady2014

Hollywood Kiss

My dear sir 

You simply must work on your Hollywood kiss

Your lips touch hers but

You hold back

Passion must pass between you

You mustn’t contain it or

Guard it

Keeping it to yourself

Saving it

For someone else 

Real or imagined

Perhaps afraid of it

Of its power

That once released

You may never take back

Forever lost to you

But you are an actor so

You must pretend that

She is yours

To take

To possess

All of her

She restlessly awaits 

Release your fervor upon her

Complete her

Answer her

Convince us

The role requires it

©kcasady2014

Foreign Film

Sometimes

In the late afternoon

Work shelved for the day

Her body heaved into the Fiat

Bogged down

Bloated seated floppy cadaver

Steering towards its manger

Eager for rest and food

The radio clears its throat

Taps its baton and

Fills the tiny auto with music 

Piano notes sedately dot the dashboard, seats and driver

Landing serenely

Gracefully

The grey street scape turns soft yellow and

Dusk light floods through the  windshield

Immersing the driver in a sepia foreign film

Of secret love

Furtive glances and

Languid afternoons of

Forbidden sex

©kcasady2014

Library Steps

There they sat

On the library steps

Backpacks scattered

Two dark heads

Engaged

Deeply

Barely noticing the passerby

Skirting around them

Moving swiftly up the stairs

Scurrying to a meet up

A slight glance back

Curious

About them

There they sat

On the library steps

Two dark heads

Hers barely touching his

Still deeply engaged

Neither looking up at the descending passerby

Again skirting around them

Having completed another rendezvous

Glancing back

No longer curious

You two have a lot to talk about said the passerby.

We lost track of time said the young bearded man.

The dark haired girl leaned in closer to him.

We do she said. Yes we do.

©kcasady