If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

The Quiet Cool

by Michael Kasenow

120 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0453; ISBN 1-55369-051-6; US$19.50, C$22.50, EUR16.00, £11.50

These poems paint social and personal experiences reflecting abuse, alienation, depression, addiction, love, friendship, courage and metaphysical wanderings.

Read more!

about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book The Quiet Cool is a collection of poems with themes that range from abuse to alienation to love and courage. The author utilizes proven styles, such as sonnet, ballad and free verse, to express the universal subjects of child and spousal abuse, drug addiction, alienation, regret, and social chaos. From these dim shadows emerge love, friendship, courage and the illumination of the soul's essence in the eye's perception. Ultimately, freedom from the past is gained in the author's journey through time. The triumph of spirit over despair is revealed in confessional and metaphysical wanderings. These eighty-two poems are photographs and paintings of a world, at times mad and cruel and chaotic, and at times filled with wonderment and compassion -- a world traveled by many of us through the maze of life.

---

About the Author Michael Kasenow has been a cab driver, bus boy, waiter, bartender, lumber jack, janitor, butcher, rancher, and is currently the Department Head of Geography and Geology at Eastern Michigan University. He has over sixty scientific publications that include books, monographs and software. He has been writing serious poetry since the age of seventeen. This is his first published collection.

---

Excerpts

    ABUSE

 When angels die and no one hears,
 Where does a nine year old boy go
 To hide from thick straps or blow by blow
 Of callous hands and bloody smears
 And kick by kick in the rage of sneers?
 The worm in the heart burrows and grows.
 Where does he go in his dirty clothes
 When the family man looks like a rose?

 What does he tell friends about the welts,
 Shame and fear lashed blue on skin;
 When blood curdles and won't flow within;
 When a broken dish unfurls the belt;
 When the candle in his soul slowly melts;
 When being born is the awful sin?

    THIS IS HOW HE REMEMBERS HER

 "I'm no angel, I'm just a friend."
 She went down stairs and through the door.
 The air she moved through moved no more.
 Quiet how these journeys end.
 Some wounds gravity cannot mend.
 If he could go into before
 Confusion walked across the floor,
 He'd go and not come back again.

 Her laugh would glide, but had no wings;
 Deep inside her eyes she bled.
 So many things she never said,
 Like good-bye and thanks for everything.
 Beauty is such a pretty thing;
 So why do all things end up dead?

    CANDLE

 A gentle spark and there's candle light.
 What was never can now be seen.
 Without this light there is no dream.
 The halo's sphere encroaches night.
 From the dark we gain our sight.
 Beyond the limit there is no beam.
 The dark is darker, yet pristine,
 For in this dark is something bright.

 In melting wax and hazy glow,
 The night drifts back to reclaim
 That part of light lost in the wane.
 And when dark winds come to blow
 Out the light how can we know
 What is a candle without the flame?

    PASSING AN AMBULANCE AT 3 A.M.

 Night is foreboding on these country roads.
 No moon or streetlights to reveal the farms.
 Only luminous eyes of raccoons
 Staring from silhouettes of trees.

 A push of the button and the radio is an old friend.

 From the black distance the ambulance howls!
 Invading the night with flashing lights;
 Sirens suffering a violent pain;
 Screaming down the road
 Like a lunatic.

 A priceless second hangs around my neck,
 Dull as a lump of coal.

 I too will ride inside that machine,
 A flaccid bag of chemicals and bones,
 Haggling for each breath,
 Years, days, hours
 Swirling in a whirlpool of regret,
 Delivered from temptation
 With all those apologies
 I never gave.

---

Catalogue Information

---