Kazimierz Square

The poetry of Karen Chase is elegant, demanding, visceral, and compelling. Beach Painting: During the painting, a man looks up the dunes,/blue bathing trunks, distinct in shape/not in color from the sea. A woman curls/on a blanket, her legs folded at the knee,/light falling on her rear./A bather has left the painting, walked down the beach,/left his chair.//Others walk off into that same thick sea/with its here and now blues. They proceed/out to far, so it's hard to know/what they ever thought. Out of the frame,/a balding man hugs at the sand./Day closes down and the painting ends./The figures still on the canvas want to go home./Wind picks up on Commercial Street.