There comes a time
When your light doth shine
Too bright.
Mute.
For the k/night
And,
Await
the fullest moon.
Super Pink arising,
Disquieting and almost, but not quite, too brightly.
Category: Creative Nonfiction
Literature
3 pieces of mine. Natural, visual art.
Can you guess the media I used to make these?
I see you
Strange what you hear when truly listening.
The young man who complains the most and says he does not care,
he works the hardest.
The gossipy ladies have perfected lazing.
His water was cut off today. A long complicated story explicating.
The people most deserving of a hug often would be the first to refuse one.
The kind of kid for whom you cook a tasty yet healthy home~cooked meal.
Even though you know he wilt likely throw it out without eating;
but, it is the thought and effort worth counting.
southern gothic
Shining teeth and blooms of the moon.
The watering can found overturned this morn; spilt was last night’s prepared water.
I tried to tell you, “let it age,” yet, what you heard was, “it is not a game.”
What was actually said only Know~One knows,
because having a steno pad is not the same as having a stenographer.
Shorthand and chicken scratch scrawlings.
Pecking and clucking.
A woman once asked my paternal grandfather,
“What do you do with an mean rooster?”
He replied, “take your hands and hold him beneath the water until he falls a bit still.”
So, she did.
Upon coming too, the bird nearly tore her eyes out.
“You did not hold him under long enough,” he dead-panned,
when she presented her grievance to him.
Careful whose advice you follow,
particularly if they keep one hand in their pants’ pocket.
Might just be a touch of sardonic, Louisiana Southern gothic.
a’new cellar door
In the States, pop culture and modern literature teachers will say,
“The most beautiful phrase in American English is ‘Cellar Door’ “.
I disagree.
A most~loved family member just texted me this line in the casual context of our
family history:
“I died in the wool romantic and an idiot.”
Sent to me with no pretense of impressing; sent in utter, spur of the moment honesty.
Howl could this ever be topped?
Impeccable and to be aspired toward.
I end the prior sentence improperly, purposefully.
Deference.
my hair predicts
“Everything went pear~shaped,” he confesses.
Oh my, no wonder your food comes out in messes.
The sudden rain gusts down in slants,
My tresses go straight into ringlets.
My hair predicts humidity, precipitation, and barometric pressure better than any meteorologist.
I leave the house with it styled one way to return, from a walk, with a totally different look.
It is the Scotch-Irish of my bloodline.
Bearing more neanderthal DNA than the majority.
Whatever that may mean.
Squeak, the cat, goes exorcist onto the door’s screen,
Startling me by meeting mine eyes with hers at an unnatural, five foot level.
Paws splayed in strange ways.
Twenty minutes later, she is asleep in her bubble wrap insulated, amazon box.
What a joy to see that what I perceive as trash becomes a highly prized toy.
cheeky biscuits
A clean kitchen.
An extra tablespoon of further chilled, unsalted butter,
An extra splash of buttermilk.
No eggs required.
Unbleached, fine flour.
Working to perfect the finicky.
A smaller cutter,
A quarter inch thicker batter to cut.
Perfecting.
Over and over
Incremental changes.
Convection
10 dollars yields 48 rounds.
I am in love.
A habit.
a place with seasons
The heat and humidity following the vernal equinox bleeds the ink of my pen and smears the stains of my writing on the page.
The crocus thrive with steadfast confidence.
The daffodils explode perfectly.
The primrose remain fussy divas.
The rose bushes work hard despite struggling.
A place with seasons shocks me.
Just as my skin adjusted to the same color of the lily white opalescent tenor of the frequent snow,
The spring sun shocks my flesh into the rosy red of a proper sunburn.
No sooner has spring spring before I realize I must prepare my soul for the not too distant summer.
My scratchmade buttermilk biscuits finally learn to rise.
A new oven; a new season.
A novel sense of urgency.
It is the season to become.
being what is eaten
Speak with your face and fingertips.
Louder than words uttered.
Understated is better than stated.
And, one can tell many things about another one, by how they treat a vegetable.
The way they wash, the knife they choose and how they slice.
Dice thrown; and, the dye cast.
What music shall I choose to play for this death.
Even vegans must confess life feeds on life feeds on life.
Does that empurpled onion reduce you
To tears?
A seasoned cast iron skillet does not need soap.
Brushed with bristles.
Oiled up and then left alone.
A serrated saw to slice tomatoes to preserve their fleshly consistency.
A fat, straight blade to make onions pay for arrogance.
Slapping herbs in the face, to conjure the aromatic gift.
The coolness of cilantro is a hipster’s voice you desire to hear but also wish would shush.
Tasting whilst you bring demise because you wilt not be caught up in surprise
At what you create.
And, should you tell me, “I do not cook.”
I wonder, “Why does fear of failure have you so shook?”
Prostrate before a pinch of sea salt.
The kindly courtesan whom doth correct all.
Pray for the favorable countenance of a full garlic clove.
This is enclave.
Three slightly beaten eggs.
Heavy syrup and pecans.
Three slightly beaten eggs.
A pie baked in lieu
An attempt to explain
all of the most basic ceremony and
rites of common society which I have naught
Experienced.
Imperfect kindness tempered with ignorance and an introverted nature.
Making myne own misunderstood rituals of Devotion.
Lacking. Paltry offering.
What I hold not in emotional availability, I make up with myne ability to stare at the sky and dream.
Appealing to others until experienced for a longer term.
A mystic certainly understands classical romanticism;
but, of the contemporary meaning of romantic, often feeling inadequate and misunderstood.
Leaving everything on the field whilst appearing like Æ did not come to play the Game at all.
Adrift in timelessness without the ability to connect in the contemporary.
Moving through time backwards to understand at death
the joy that others missed while they experienced
It.
Heavy bursts of ecstasies that leave others lacking It in the in~between.
A day spent on the back porch
Spring is truly here.
By myne own watch do I so declare.
A day spent on the back porch secures this truth more accurately than these poor weathermen trying to read the tea leaves to predict things, often incorrectly.
Prophecy is not the equivalent of a best guess.
Yet, I respect their need to speak in ways deterministic.
They have a job; I have the simple luxury of looking into the picturesque.
(At least for another couple of weeks.)
Cottonwood seeds flutter like dandelions wished upon.
The three baby squirrels left the carriage house for the first time; and, explored the oak tree.
I watched the parents build their den drey weeks ago.
The birds sing in ecstatic glee.
Perching, en masse, preening, showing off for potential mates.
Being new here, I do not know their avian names; but, upon reflection, that seems right proper.
Even the insects cannot resist landing on me in joyous greeting.
I blow them off with a gentle breeze from my lungs.
The songs and chitters fill the sky and every bit of the ether between.
The Chinese Tallow tree drops its cotton~like downy seed.
It is not truly that so-called tree; but, being new here, it is the closest descriptive name that I know to call thee.
Upon reflection, that seems rite and proper.
Because to see does not truly require name~calling.
The pitch reaches its peak at four, before mellowing as the sun approaches the horizon’s seam.
Two young boys play in the alleyway. One on a bike chasing the other who is on foot.
They are twins. They swap places frequently.
I could show you well framed pictures; I could make this description more becoming and literarily.
But, who cares when s/he is enjoying the first day of spring.
It is finally warm; and, as I thaw, I understand that I knew not how frozen I had become.
mystical metaphysics
Such a rage boils my blood whilst listening to the ignorant ones.
My knee jerks to curse and wish them failure;
but, what I exude wilt come back three times as strongly to me. So, I don’t.
The golden ratio of a basic rule.
A simple, plastic bag billows, impaled on a tree.
An ugly reminder I live well inside the veil,
keeping one foot Here and one foot There.
Mystical metaphysics.
Everything smells of sautéed shiitake when I feel this way.
Entropy has become this country.
Voting is not a privilege;
It is a right.
And Mister GOP, if you say “politics is a zero sum game” before the highest court of this land,
then you concede that leadership is not your forte.
Go, Jim Crow, we are sick of your antiquated quagmire.
Such attempts to disenfranchise will surely backfire.
The oppressed are motivated.
Your conservative base becomes lazy when inconvenienced.
Reaping what you’ve sown wilt be your future problem.
As they say in fencing:
a stretch before the rebeginning
My cauldron bubbles in its boil. A sacred prayer to the dead man chicken in my pot.
And, the last three years have been such an eternity that any song both brings me to proudly stand on toes with limbs extending past 90° to Earth’s curvature.
Whilst also reducing me to tears without my understanding why.
The legacy and curse of a dancer’s ballet-cy.
Words invented while subterfuge may whisper context.
Lost on most of my friendly vigilantes.
And whilst a boiling cauldron sounds dramatic, it is nothing more than a beautiful breast in spices, the most important of which being garlic.
Whole cloves and bay leaves.
Magic so simply esoteric that many mistake it for being erudite.
Just read, sweet things.
Nothing more simplistically
Put
Into a proper place.
And, the uninitiated may unabashedly speak volumes whilst claiming the Heyoka status.
When did admitting yourself to be The Fool become so unseemingly.
Chicken nervously almost cooked and begging shredding.
And the act requires meticulous tediousness.
Yet, if you want to consume a sacrificed carcass should anything less be expected?
And I miss the Jamaican aroma. Unallowed here. But, the rite of alcohol pales.
The breast resists shredding.
Respect for sacrifice;
so I rest
before the rebeginning
perhaps you cannot see; but they shine brightly to me
The clouds here move quickly tonight.
The stars, they move more slowly. Less capriciously.
To the tock and tick of their own steadfast Pendulum.
I watch the cover of both refuse to be stagnant.
I count their changes by the beating of myne heart.
The truest metronome.
The clock I carry with me until evermore;
and, should it cease?
Well, I would surely be the last one to know.
hot-rolled steel
The difference between assume and presume.
What is the difference between you and me?
What you think you want is an excuse to relieve yourself of duty to self.
To achieve is a perpetul disability.
To be is the zenith.
And, I thank some unnamed God that I dream.
The Skellig formations whisper to me in the form of three single leaves rustling.
Dragging across coarse cement. Reminiscent.
I miss the Olympics, those ranging mountains.
I could kiss clean streets now that I have none.
Entreaty.
I miss being the small fish in the massive sea.
I feel too big presently.
A line of cans rails the brick wall, confirming it to be so.
Trying to pass another meaningless test.
Drilling until perfection be found.
Reaching the offer I do not wish to take.
On a train, the quiet car, where I truly wish to be.
In silence and rocked by steel rails until fastly asleep.
And, a rabbit makes its home beneath this porch and me.
I have sprinkled bread crumbs when I should have spread my spinach.
Make your hutch and hop around me.
A plea.
The wind blows open the door.
I say, “thank you, but what for?”
be
Picayune and jejune.
Still your tongue, little one.
I take notes of that which you do not say.
Do as thou wilt and keep silent about what might may.
Be.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
A finger over closed lips subverts avoidable mishaps.
The first step to alchemize gold is not brash.
It is bold.
the strange peach’s stone
A faint light briefly illuminates the window across the way. It makes me wonder what changed interiorly.
A downy softness surrounds me today.
Time moves slowly.
Suddenly surprised, hearing geese honking. Flying higher than the lowly, snowy cloud cover.
A silly goose once puffed up and squared off with me, during an unintentional path crossing.
I backed down quickly, alarmed at how alarming it found me to be.
It makes me wonder of the owl who used to visit and play with me.
Twice swooping and snatching at the breezy, long ties of my sleeveless shirt.
It subsequently perched on the lowest limb of the nearest tree.
A father and his child came to see and commented of its beauty.
I stared at them, speechless and dumbstruck, still and in awe of what had just happened to me.
The great bird was tufted. Signifying it may have originated from the underworld.
What spirit concerns itself with me?
Here it comes: the strange peach’s stone of a memory, sitting in my stomach
heavily.
So, I write backwards in Hebrew, which feels like forward to me; and, whilst I know the characters, I know not that which they mean.
Pure, pleasing automatic writing before I play.
asking a seashell for a sermon.
And, the girl laughed because she made a small error in her breathing exercise;
but, she kept her rhythm and regarded the incorrect exhalation as a ‘wrong’ key struck on a piano.
“I must keep to the tempo. What matters is the playing, not striking the ‘right’ key.”
She turned to the cat, Dinah, to see if she agreed.
Dinah had noticed nothing; and, this made the girl giggle harder and wonder:
Who is the pet and who is the master?
The girl had been thinking about thinking.
Dinah was being.
And, the girl wonders, if she cannot trust herself, why should she trust her mistrust of herself.
Then, she realized she was figuratively
asking a seashell for a sermon
instead of admiring it with determined purposelessness.
a continent of consonants.
There’s inconsistent consonance amidst the constant dissonance; and,
it makes her so tired that she could not possibly sleep.
This continent of consonants sees few vow well.
The scent of an uncapped pen’s ink funnels up her philtrum to violate her nostrils.
It makes her wet.
■
The sun grew too bright, so she saved her daylight time to accrue an extra midnight hour.
Preparing for Persephone, abiding until the winter solstice.
Her handwriting abruptly changes its font; and, she understands she is now taking dictation from a new source.
■
So, she stalks the coquettish house in the ebony of the deep evening,
listening to its moans as she strides down the strange steps of the home’s erogenous zones.
The walls writhing in their dripping striptease,
scraped off wallpaper revealing more wallpaper covering more wallpaper.
Hard wood floors caressing her soles with cold smooth.
Door jambs whisper secrets most care not to know.
Roof hovering, dominating, hiding the stars that may be falling.
Too many patterns pronounce; and, she’s so consumed by seeing them that she forgets to keep looking.
The Truth of a trickster may be bald and unabashed; but,
it is never ugly.
■
She is an unoccupied sleeve of a cigarette vending machine.
Coin plinked, toggle tugged, message received:
Brand loyalty is an unaffordable luxury in times of scarcity.
So, smoke ’em if you got ’em, for tomorrow we die, again.
She pours two fingers of spirit, then tops it with two more until only the thumb remains.
■
The Holy Ghost resents the Father and the Son; but,
holds the Fallen Madonna(,) dear.
So, She houses the Spirit tightly
against Her breasts
because God doesn’t talk to Her;
and, She refuses to speak to angels.
■
The chaotic neutral must be just that
because a single leaf fell here instead of there.
the tweezers I lost
I, coaxed under the quilt, am.
Say the following, aloud, three times:
~guilt~
~less~
~inning~.
Through open shutters, panes, and, screens does the breeze force a shudder from these
curtains.
And, you try to wait for the good ones to come; but,
meanwhile, you wonder,
Is the barre too high?
He could pull a hamstring, stretching,
while I’m stood there,
en pointe, waiting.
(((Suddenly, the tweezers I lost,
they appear(
after a lengthy diatribe) delivered to Know~One)
Socratic Circles….)
…I told you I’d try)
((( (…) )))
And, like a moth, I wait for his light to turn on;
yet,
were they to read this, each might think it’s about him.
Bringing the medicine of chaos, I return.
Full and hollow like a cæctus tree.
WrittenCasey 