In loving memory of Joseph Karasek
How long could this sort of thing go on?
I hear the old man’s voice haunting me
as I write—
the voice of a ghost
even when the old poet was alive
his voice that of a ghost.
He went on and on, died at 97,
his mind crisp as the icy bite
of a grim winter storm.
He used to tell me that the endings
of my poems should be the beginnings
of new poems.
How long could that sort of thing go on?
Charlie Brice
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His ninth full-length poetry collection is Tragedy in the Arugula Aisle (Arroyo Seco Press, 2025). His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, Chiron Review, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere.
