Karen Fabiane

         the Frankenstein Monster as I Remember Him			                                   	                                                                                

     There should be no contest.									   
Myself vs. the Frankenstein monster:					                                  				                                     
                                                             whose portrait
                                                                                      should I finish first?
My own will be done soon.	
                                           An abbreviation,								   
without much effort it'll look like me,						                                                        	                                                   
                                                         mask & all.
     But the Frankenstein monster-- 									           
 I knew him only that brief moment before										                                                           
                                                                  he stepped into the Arctic ice 				          
 to vanish forever, grieving 										            
his creator's death & the futility 														    
                                                  of his own eloquence. 

I thought I saw him today panhandling						                                   
on the Brooklyn Bridge, standing						                                                 
 a little too tall;							                                                    
shaking the pebbles from his criminal's brain, my drinking-buddy,				                    
who never knew luck,					                                                                                                      	                        
                                  did not want this life.

     He insists my approach is too literary & swears					              	       
he'll get to me or my brother.  What he never forgets	                                                                           
is his own image on the water's surface						                                                         		                                          
                                                                 uncomprehending;				                                   
he must've always known he was marked.					                                         
People focus											           
on stories of his passionate brutality.						                                                				           
                                                            Eyewitness accounts 					                      
are legion but seldom is mention made of the curse									                                                                         
                                                                                       that was his life.   
 
How are your electrodes,										   	 		                  
                                         humans?  The perpetual frown
                                                                                           subsides  in the company of the blind.

     Loving music,											          
he leans across the table.  The place								                          			                        
                                                             is lit with candles.

     A piano rushes through his brain carrying the ghosts														      
                                                                                           of two children:				                   									    
                                                                                                                    the one he murdered;
                                                                                                                                                       the other he never was.	                            
The wine is strong.		                                                                                                                       
What do you do after you've murdered the child 			           
                                                                              you never were?			                                
How else do you approach formal beauty?	The monster's trying to tell me something...

     then hears his name										           
& blisters the instrument out of the player's hand.		                                                                       
No one says a word.  Its good													             
                                                  to hear him laugh,
                                                                              but not so funny					      
what happens when the wrong parts & basic elementals		                                                           
are given another chance at life, 								               	                              				    
                                                    like this canvas & its paint
							                                                                     that refuses to dry.
 
         

Karen Fabiane was born in 1949 in NYC and grew up on Long Island.  Under a different name, she was part of the Manhattan downtown scene during the 1970s, making music, writing & performing poetry, and painting.  Her work has been published in Bound, Coal, Delaware County Times, Home Planet News, Newsletter Inago, Momoware, New Voices, OM, Poetry Motel, RagShock, Salonika, Title I, Torture House USA, and four different anthologies released by Bright Hill Press, which  also published her book, Dancing Bears, in 2011; a 2nd book, Seeing You Again, was published by Grey Book Press in 2014.  Her paintings have been exhibited in Seattle, New York City, Washington, DC, and the Capital District of New York (Albany environs) since 1978.  Moved from Brooklyn to Delaware County in 1989, she currently lives in Troy.