Circa 2000

I Can't Believe You Did This Again

I've always wanted
to lay with you on the front lawn
Until all the grass dies beneath us
and all that's left
are our beautiful silhouettes.
Like a crime scene.
Because that's what this has been all along;
A crime scene.

The debris of this
lays everywhere.
But you still decided to give it another go,
because you didn't burn enough stuff to the ground the first time.
Ashes
Ashes
You're the dust on my mantle
and tv
and between my books now.
You're just dust now.
There's nothing I can hold onto.

And I used to think
we were something solid.
Rock.
Marble.
Brick.
Mortared Stone.
Things you need welders and hot iron and giant hammers
to even chip away at.
But now I can't even feel you
when you're on my finger tips.

I guess that's good.
Everyone says it is.
It is for the best but I still miss you
and those upside down things
we said to each other.
But you're just dust now.
I can wipe you clean,
but you'll build up again.
You'll just build up again and coat this all in ashes.
I just know it.

For Maggie

To my best friend, whose feet may be gone from this place, but her steps are still on the sidewalk.

Coventry Darling

It's snowing on Coventry.
Each flake threads its way through bricks,
dressing the street in her hippy wedding gown.
When the snow piles up,
I remember you.
Lecturing me in my holy rain boots,
lined with nothing,
telling me I'm going to freeze if I don't get something better on my feet.
But everything's frozen lately.
My feet,
the street,
this city.
Still in the anticipation of you.
Still; waiting for Coventry's favorite bride.

You married the mountains,
but your pulse is beneath this concrete.
I feel it pumping,
so hard sometimes its tough to stand still on the sidewalk.
The street remembers us well.
Those nights we looked how we feel.
Those nights we gave up on getting home early.
Where we let the Cave's candles burn time,
where we let B Side see us
spinning in our highest heels.
Those nights.
I know its not easy coming home,
leaving blood behind,
but know the signs lose their saturation
and street musicians lose their turn,
Coventry darling,
until you do.

Been a long time...an old one.

While cleaning and going through my old journals, I found this. I don't even remember who it was about. Someone in 2003. Who knows but he must have inspired me.

The Truth About That Accident.

That car was on fire
and we were burning inside.
The engine sparked
when your fingers coiled through my hair
and the flames licked the frames of your glasses
and melted plastic dripped
dripped
on my lap.
We could of held onto anything worth saving
and that was only each other.
That was only each other
and what little hope we had in a world made for silly thoughts and dreaming.
The truth is,
at that moment, I would burnt to ash if it meant I could hold you longer.
At that moment, I would of burned forever
just so your coffee would never get cold.
Our bones were made of metal
and as the heat became as thick as our thinking,
we welded together.
Our marrow and our metal.
Our veins and our tin.
The steering wheel and the doors
and the tires and the rims
and our lashes and our legs
and the headlights
permanently
until all we were and ever would be
was part of that car
And that's where I always left us.

Merits

Sometimes the weight of this rests on me
as heavy as the history of the world.
And I realize these ghosts
are more then just the dead I knew.
They are living and breathing fossils.
Bones of my childhood.
The wood and frame of that green house on Lawrence Ave
where I thought,
where I knew
you'd always love me.
But growing older has taught me
that knowing can be an illusion
and what a lucky student I am
to have you as a teacher.

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.

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."

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!