Michael Casey: A New Poem

March 23, 2020 by PaulM Posted in Lowell, Poetry, Literature, Culture, History 4 Comments
art and Emanuel 
     a tale of Fort Wood, Missouri
by Michael Casey
.
when you are making
seventy-six dollars a month
the idea
of spending one hundred dollars
on a wall poster
when you don’t even have a wall
sort of stupid but he sees a leaflet
on my bunk
how to buy
an art poster
a representation
of a Paris Review cover
and Emanuel tells me
you know, Case
I own a work of art
by Picasso and I says
no, Emanuel
you never told me that
what does it look like?
or what is it supposed to be
a woman made
up of blue rectangles?
he ignores my humor
goes it is actually
a bunch of rectangular blocks
on brown paper
I say  to him you know, Emanuel
there’s a bridge in my home town
over the Merrimac river
the Central Bridge
and he‘s like what you talking about
and I say I can get it for you cheap
and it is easy to find too
like it is located on Bridge street
.
(2020)

4 Responses to Michael Casey: A New Poem

  1. Steve O. says:

    Has to be Casey. Love his poetic voice. Reminds me a bit of Tom Wolfe: “I never need to see another painting of a woman with three noses.”

  3. Jeannie Judge says:

    Cheers on this beleaguered afternoon.

    I know a poet who used to drive to Lowell
    from Andover on Thursday mornings
    to put his mother’s barrels out
    for trash collection; then he drove
    to the station to catch the train
    to Boston. In the evening
    he took the train to Lowell to go
    to his mother’s home to bring the barrels
    in from the curb; then he drove home
    to Andover.
    He could have paid someone, a kid, to do
    the job, but he loved his mother’s smile.