Joseph Karasek
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Joseph Karasek performed as actor and violinist with The Theater Within, an improvisational theater group in New York City. He also taught music composition and theory at Long Island University. He has been living in Pittsburgh since 1991 where he taught philosophy at the Academy for Lifelong Learning at Carnegie Mellon University. He recently led a study group on James Joyce’s Ulysses there. His poetry has been published in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Exchange, The Pittsburgh Quarterly and yawp, and is forthcoming in Janus Head and Facture.
A trace that once was human
A passion for war overcomes human blood
then spills over mountains of marble
until finally the color changes,
the grass no longer green
the tree no longer brown
the leaf no longer yellow.
No one notices the red leaf anymore
it is the same color everywhere
the color we have eaten with our daily bread.
I look to the sky, its ocean of strange geometry-
Embedded in it, a woman’s face
her body covered over by an array of night’s bastions
swirling in a kind of frantic, if fragile space.
An eye veiled in a film of tears
steadily through the night, unwavering
as the swords cross, slash through mountains
and rivers turn to angry fires-
Searching my pockets, among
torn halves of movie tickets,
pieces of worn dust
I examine a doubtful schedule
marking time’s bizarre arrival and departure
wander, aimlessly poking about strange moons-
witness an ancient shape, graceful, lithe,
a trace that once was human, dancing through the heavens.
A passion for war overcomes human blood
then spills over mountains of marble
until finally the color changes,
the grass no longer green
the tree no longer brown
the leaf no longer yellow.
No one notices the red leaf anymore
it is the same color everywhere
the color we have eaten with our daily bread.
I look to the sky, its ocean of strange geometry-
Embedded in it, a woman’s face
her body covered over by an array of night’s bastions
swirling in a kind of frantic, if fragile space.
An eye veiled in a film of tears
steadily through the night, unwavering
as the swords cross, slash through mountains
and rivers turn to angry fires-
Searching my pockets, among
torn halves of movie tickets,
pieces of worn dust
I examine a doubtful schedule
marking time’s bizarre arrival and departure
wander, aimlessly poking about strange moons-
witness an ancient shape, graceful, lithe,
a trace that once was human, dancing through the heavens.
the face of god
After Arabesque by Vivan Sundaram
God is lost in his own face.
Only his eye is visible,
a sorrowful eye, but wise, kind and hopeful.
The women are everywhere,
One looks directly at God’s face,
another distrusts, withdraws,
another remains aloof,
who sees God only by looking in another direction.
Yet another sees nothing, is frozen by his vision,
sits, arms folded, staring into an empty space.
Faces that float, asleep in his image!
What a tangle, what a dance!
What lavenders, blues and autumn reds!
A photo here of a woman
boxed into a frame,
the frame rests in another frame and so on.
Small people are working at their chores beneath the frames.
One plays the violin.
Dug up from the mind and soul,
all this burrowing, pieces of yarn,
tossed about aimlessly,
find themselves in a garden.
It is where the legends go, where they lie,
deep in the ground.
The mistrustful woman looks up and freezes.
Only her hands play with the fiber, whip up the magic, the old toads,
venomous snakes, arms and legs shaken from their bodies.
Waist down she lives in this tangle-
vagina, calves, thighs, all part of the soup,
stories with no beginnings, no ends.
After Arabesque by Vivan Sundaram
God is lost in his own face.
Only his eye is visible,
a sorrowful eye, but wise, kind and hopeful.
The women are everywhere,
One looks directly at God’s face,
another distrusts, withdraws,
another remains aloof,
who sees God only by looking in another direction.
Yet another sees nothing, is frozen by his vision,
sits, arms folded, staring into an empty space.
Faces that float, asleep in his image!
What a tangle, what a dance!
What lavenders, blues and autumn reds!
A photo here of a woman
boxed into a frame,
the frame rests in another frame and so on.
Small people are working at their chores beneath the frames.
One plays the violin.
Dug up from the mind and soul,
all this burrowing, pieces of yarn,
tossed about aimlessly,
find themselves in a garden.
It is where the legends go, where they lie,
deep in the ground.
The mistrustful woman looks up and freezes.
Only her hands play with the fiber, whip up the magic, the old toads,
venomous snakes, arms and legs shaken from their bodies.
Waist down she lives in this tangle-
vagina, calves, thighs, all part of the soup,
stories with no beginnings, no ends.
the cup
For Rosaly Roffman
I search, feel for a history, or, at least
some kind of story that won’t go away.
In and among the hills, under the greys and garish pink
alongside the wild goats
a snarled thicket engages my feet
sore, blistered, trying to find a way through
not yet ready to yield to the cold burlesque of death.
I look up, see the fevered generations
as they gather on the rim.
Here is my cup, I whisper
and the answer comes in throngs, swarming in from the brine
we are the ones who have left our depths
forever, to toss and turn.
My cupped hands gather some rain.
I savor a few drops as it runs to the sodden earth.
When the sun finally comes through
a soft slope, a scattering of trees-
I sit in the stillness
the great deepening to which I have fallen.
For Rosaly Roffman
I search, feel for a history, or, at least
some kind of story that won’t go away.
In and among the hills, under the greys and garish pink
alongside the wild goats
a snarled thicket engages my feet
sore, blistered, trying to find a way through
not yet ready to yield to the cold burlesque of death.
I look up, see the fevered generations
as they gather on the rim.
Here is my cup, I whisper
and the answer comes in throngs, swarming in from the brine
we are the ones who have left our depths
forever, to toss and turn.
My cupped hands gather some rain.
I savor a few drops as it runs to the sodden earth.
When the sun finally comes through
a soft slope, a scattering of trees-
I sit in the stillness
the great deepening to which I have fallen.