Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Hot Moon in July






you always brought the fireworks on the 4th of july.


in big paper bags


like they were groceries


packed in your corvette.


we'd start with the bottle rockets


watch them scream into the air


and pop


hoping the burning ashes wouldn't damage the neighbor's roof.

you lit cigarette after cigarette

until the roof of your mouth burned

and the sun went down.


on the 4th of july,

you always felt like living

so you brought us cracker jacks

and cherry bombs

and gave us sparklers.

we lit those and watched them sizzle
and we'd write our names in the air
and in the sky
because just for a second
it stayed there.
when the night got really black,
you told me to lay on the monkey bars and watch the show
and i did it for years
and the show never changed.
fire and gun powder.
pills
pills
pills
and suicide.
I want to put all of this into the body of a rocket
and launch it out of an empty beer bottle
and watch it screaming towards a hot july moon.
we'd light firecrackers in the driveway
and you always made sure to tell me
"stand back, kate, you don't want to get burned"
i wondered if anyone ever told you that
because you got so close i could see the sparks in your pupils.
it would go out and we'd keep lighting more
until the pavement singed black.
it stained black
you burnt out faster then those fireworks
and you said you wanted the flames to eat your bones
so we watched your ashes
sink to the bottom of the bay.
i don't even buy fireworks anymore
i pay someone to light them for me
and i think it might have rained the last few years
and you can't light anything in the rain.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Guest Poet :Anna Ciferno


This is a poem my brilliant poet of a neice, Anna, wrote about my little 2 year old daughter, Scarlett. Or how everyone in the whole world refers to her as "Squishy Bumpkins".




"You don’t believe your own name.
Your birth certificate would be the
most illegitimate document
to you if the people you love
who love you
told you that your name was
something different.

My mom called you darling
on Monday & you cried.

I ran into you & you fell
into a pile of sticks behind the grill
& you told me you were so sorry
and continued to blow bubbles
with your lips covered in soap
from the little circle bubble maker.

You asked me how my day was
& I wanted to say it was horrible, Scarlet Rose
but you do not think that is your name
& my day was not horrible anymore,
you were smiling.

I asked you how your day was
& you told me to look at your jelly shoes.
They are yellow, you tell me
I know this, but I act surprised.

Then you tell me about mermaids
that live in my kitchen sink
& flamingos in the closet.
You deny reality to embrace imagination.
You paint thoughts bigger than the suns hands
could ever stretch with two year old eye lashes
& you don’t believe your name."

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Getting published in Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology for 2009

I submitted three of my poems to this infamous celebration of the arts with a timeline saying I'd know by the 30th if I made it. Well, the 30th came and went, and so did the 1st,2nd,3rd, 4th, and 5th and I heard nothing so I thought I didn't make the cut. Usually, if I don't succeed at something, I think "well, I just wasn't good enough...". This is the first thing I've done where I feel I really am good enough so I was "wtf"ing for a week! Finally today I get an email saying I've been accepted and I will read my entry at Mac Books on Coventry on May 13th at 7! The top three go on to the stage at the art fair that following weekend. I'm so excited! It's my first published work! Its giving me the steam I need to really start this blog rolling and to get off my ass. Its called "traveling poetry" but it has only traveling once and I need to do it again. Hooray!