Six Feet Down
Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, IndieBoundGenre: Poetry
ISBN13: 978-1440107191
Overview
Michael Kasenow’s new volume of poetry, Something’s Bound To Happen, is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online sources. Below are some of the award winning poems that you can read in his collections. Six Feet Down is a book of poems that break through the walls of idealism and naiveté. The voices are mature with respect for mortality, regret and the empty promise of broken dreams. Lost love, materialism, alienation, and the need for purpose are a few of the themes and threads that tie these visions together. There is disappointment here, and despair, but there is also the acceptance that life is what we make it out to be. Control is the illusion; choices are all we have. Six Feet Down is a walk through memory and time—a passage through the inevitable—the truth of what is. Here are some samples from the award winning collection of poems.
Excerpts
SWEETWATER
…And so I called after all these years.
“There’s always a catch,” that’s what she said.
A month to the day and now she’s dead.
“With three husbands who needs a career?”
Bitterness glossed behind veneer.
The trade she made for thoroughbreds,
Provence wine and fancy bread.
“How in the hell d’ya find me here?”
She stumbled and slurred about Mozambique.
Sweetwater had lost her voice.
She once said: “It’s all about choice.”
But those days are like an old antique.
It’s a hell-u-va way to start a week—
Flowers and prayers: A box for Joyce.
SURVIVING CANCER
Night will come soon enough.
A change will surely come.
Put away your bullets
And pounding of your drums.
Reach for what you cannot touch,
For change will surely come.
Is Heaven filled with angels?
A change will surely come.
Does it roll and flow in valleys
‘Neath a crimson, halo sun
Or is it quiet, cold and black?
A change will surely come.
Winter winds are grazing.
A change will surely come.
Put away your restlessness,
Masquerades and sum
Of what you think you are
For change will surely come.
THE SACRED JOURNEY
Build me a ship and I’ll hoist the sails
Far from rocks and complaints below;
To quiet shores where west winds blow,
Where skies ignite the dawn’s red soul,
Where bombs can’t fly and lies can’t grow,
Where coves are blue and water glows
In waves and pools of tidal flows.
Build me a ship—and I will go.
Forge me a train and I’ll ride the rails
Where hate is windless and virtue is gold,
Where mountain cathedrals are gods to behold,
And deserts chant with shamans of old,
Where rivers bend and legends are bold,
Where honor and truth are never a load.
I’ll rock through towns not yet sold.
Forge me a train—and I will go.
Raise me wings and I’ll soar with gales
Where greed can’t breathe and angels ascend,
Where sun and moon are best of friends,
Where stars are a-blaze and darkness ends,
Where excuses have no words to mend,
Where pride and jealousy transcend,
Where prayers are real and no one pretends.
Raise me wings—and I will go.
Cut me a road and I’ll go without fail
Where cowards and thieves have nowhere to hide,
Where sweet air blooms with rainbow pride,
Where good men covet grateful brides,
Where pines and prairies and summers provide
The harvest home where hunger has died,
Where faith and hope and happiness ride.
Cut me a road—and I will go.
WAITING FOR MOSES
A kid stands in the doorway, she’s looking at the stars.
Last year’s famous hunter is selling last year’s cars.
Old men walk old dogs where tributaries flow
Into the mighty current.
Here it comes and there it goes.
Boys light cigarettes as domino decisions,
Cut curly super highways, like hasty circumcisions,
On mountains, plains and seas. The haunted wind blows
Through the sunny graveyard.
Here it comes and there it goes.
Road maps lead to nowhere. No place changes view.
What we said we did is what we didn’t do.
The circus just left town. Nowhere needs a show,
Straight from everywhere.
Here it comes and there it goes.
Burrows offer comfort for fears of sleepy moles.
Danger’s not in knowing, it’s what you think you know.
Racetracks fly through cities of columns placed in rows.
The speed of life is green.
Here it comes and there it goes.
New age organic therapists sell gratifying themes.
The fact’ry inspected, production line dreams
Are sprayed with artificial glossy, gleamy glows.
Like changes in the weather,
Here it comes and there it goes.
Guarantees and warrantees fill the empty soul.
Value’s definition depends on what you owe.
Consumption is consumed and dumped in deeper holes.
Moses drives a smoky bus—
Here it comes and there it goes.