Φ

ΦΦΦΦ
  • HOME
  • ORDER
  • THE BARN
  • DEVOLUTION
  • EVOLUTION
  • REVELATION
  • RAW THΦUGHTS
  • MERIDIAN
  • POETRY
  • CONTACT & EVENTS
  • MEDIA
  • QUOTES
  • BLOG

John Casey • Novelist and Poet

Φ

ΦΦΦ
  • HOME
  • ORDER
  • THE BARN
  • DEVOLUTION
  • EVOLUTION
  • REVELATION
  • RAW THΦUGHTS
  • MERIDIAN
  • POETRY
  • CONTACT & EVENTS
  • MEDIA
  • QUOTES
  • BLOG

Poetry By John Casey

** Nominated for the PUSHCART PRIZE


Am I

Carpe Diem

Deference for Despair

Discriminating Taste

Dominion

** Listen

Ne Plus Ultra

Perfect Day

** Real

Reflection

Reminiscence

Rot in Camouflage

Spring

Stellar

Stigma

Sweet Nothings

Terminal

That Thing That Was Missing

The Lightness of Time

This

Unicorn

Why


UNFETTERED


I was told it only has worth

when it's written in a very, very circumlocutory manner,

or enveloped in obscurity,

or laced with impossibly complex analogies

and with words that don't belong together together.


Singularly weird and nearly incomprehensible

are what seem to make it most valuable to them.

Better to describe love as adventitious candy corn than ethereal sunshine.

Better to describe someone in despair as an obfuscated polecat than a wintered soul.

Obfuscated polecat—now that baby right there just might win you some kinda golden trophy.


I was told in fact, by them, you really shouldn't talk about love at all,

or about loss—clichés in and of themselves—unless

you are prepared to twist them in such alluringly demiurgic fashion

that there is nary a spider-silk thread of a connection left

between what you've written and what you actually meant.


They think they have an ace up their sleeve,

a sure way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

But all bets are off. You know why? 

'Cause they're not looking for 

what I'm looking for. 


And they are all the same—incongruously lost in the prosaism of universally prescriptive 

zealous sophistication, aversion to logic, and abstruse reflective cogitation. 

We don't need their silly trophy. I want us to be on the same page. 

I want you to relate. I want us to get something good out of it. 

And I want it to be the raw, unfettered truth. So anything goes.

LOVE SONG

 John Casey commissioned Love Song, a poem from his book RAW THΦUGHTS, to be composed into a song by Susan Bell. This piano version, also played by Susan, is without lyrics.

© 2017 JOHN CASEY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Love Song

From there on to eternity,

rare palette of notes in my mind.

A herald of love’s prophecy

that’s there to hear, yet hard to find

Sustained by a refrain so strong,

the melody, too real to fade.

A whispered, emotional song,

every hour and day, always played

A distant place not long ago,

born of love, a symphony there.

Yearning for a sweet crescendo,

in time, I pray, somehow, somewhere 

Copyright © 2021 John Casey  •  Novelist & Poet  •  All Rights Reserved

  • HOME
  • ORDER
  • THE BARN
  • DEVOLUTION
  • EVOLUTION
  • REVELATION
  • RAW THΦUGHTS
  • MERIDIAN
  • POETRY
  • CONTACT & EVENTS
  • MEDIA
  • QUOTES
  • BLOG

Φ Look Inside Φ