bromance

you choose

him or 

me

bromance or

romance

though I admit to

a lack of romance and

perhaps to a liking of those

evenings alone 

eating friendly strawberry crepes while

watching luscious chic flicks then

sprawling alone on our bed

falling asleep feet tucked under the hound

©Karen Casady2018

In response to Douglas MacKinnion’s article “How Long Will I Be Allowed To Remain A Christian?” (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/04/21/how-long-will-be-allowed-to-remain-christian.html)

Hey dude. Man up and quit your whining. 

We Jews have put up with anti-semitism for two thousand years. And, oh wait. Who came up with the idea of Jews as Christ killers? Oh let me think. 

And, oh wait. Crusading Christian knights heading to the Holy Land to free it from Islam stopped along the way to slaughter Jews. Why wait to get to the Holy Land to murder infidels. 

Oh, and the Spanish Inquisition. Adopt Christianity or die. And, oh wait.The granddaddy of all. The Final Solution. Six million Jews gassed, shot, starved simply because, wait for it, they were Jews.

So dude, quit your whining. 

You folks have done your darnedest to rid the world of us folks. Unabashedly and unapologeticly. So we Jews have our doubts over your concerns. You are, after all, the majority. You do, in fact, wield great swaths of power.

And, oh wait. Much to your consternation, we Jews seem to survive. Tenaciously and unapologeticly. And, you folks seem to forget that Jesus was a circumcised Jewish man preaching to his fellow Jews. Oh, how quickly that is swept under the rug. 

Hey dude. Man up and quit your whining.

©Karen Casady2018

mythology

She bought into his mythology.

Counted her change. Penny by penny. 

She plunked down her fortune.

Of course she did. 

For better or for worse. In sickness and in health.
She’s always there. She believes. She needs to believe.
Anything. Everything. Or there is nothing. 

A void. 

A vastness too broad to cross. 

The soles of her feet burn as she tries. The soul of her heart sears through her brain. Seals her eyes, nose and mouth. So she stumbles without vision and worships her god. 

©Karen Casady2018

Liar

They lied. 

He lied.

The most powerful man in this country.

He lied. 

I cannot tell a lie, George Washington

The cherry tree

What happened to I cannot tell a lie

The most powerful man in this country

Oh let’s just lie about it, they said

Let’s just make up a story

I paid him back

So he says now

After deciding to lie

Lying trumps truth saying

And the believers say, see we knew it

And the truth sayers flabbergasted fall silent

And even the comics can’t laugh

And we wonder where the monks are

The ones who poured fuel upon themselves

Lit a match and burned for hypocrisy 

They’d be called mad men

Their charred remains blown away

©Karen Casady2018

birth day 4/18

Birth day. Day of birth. The

day we pop out of our 

mothers’ vaginas. We squall.

We protest. We beg for 

return. For none of us ever dream

of leaving the womb. We miss

its warm liquid darkness We

long for its steady beating heart. 

Most of us feel the immediate embrace of 

loving arms. Steadfast. Comforting. And 

kisses. Millions of them planted in upon

our tiny soft heads. 

But some of us pop out and we wait 

to hear a beating heart. And we wait 

for loving arms. And kisses. For us that
is our normal. Because we don't know. 

Later, we wonder what happened. 

©Karen Casady2018

for better or worse

“Why do you stay married to her?” you ask.

the difficulties between them magnified by multitudes of acrimony… by charmlessness… by a never-ending cramp in your wellbeing… a gut-wrenching tableau endlessly unfolding

“For better or worse,” he responds.

worse is better than better… better is worse than worse… the hell?... worse is better than nothing… nothing is better than worse… better never happens

“Fine,” you say. “Fine.”

you shake your head… throw up your arms… better or worse falters… fades… drops away… drained to sodden drivel… a sudden puddle splattered… a big bang… you are gone

©Karen Casady2018

safety

so you go through the motions of

living and loving and you do stuff for

appearances and sometimes you feel

content and sometimes not but mostly

you walk between fair and middling hovering

above okay and just so to achieve your day but

sometimes you wonder about beyond the middle

about ecstasy or utter despair yet these things elude

you so you build a wall of invisible stasis and no one knows

how empty safety can be

©Karen Casady 2018