I've Published a Book!

I just had a chapbook of poetry published with Pudding House Publications. It's called Tether. I'm so happy! It's a limited edition, so order yours soon!

To order a copy of Tether, send cash or check to Romy Piccolella, 586 Knipe Road, Liberty, PA 16930. The cost is $10 per chapbook with $2.50 shipping and an extra .50 per additional book. You can also send cash, check, or credit card number with expiration date to Pudding House Publications, 81 Shadymere Lane, Columbus, OH 43213. They also accept phone orders: 614-986-1881.

I've also had some poems accepted for publication in the online journals "The Cherry Blossom Review" and "languageandculture.net" - pretty neat! Now, I just have to get out the pen and start some new material...help!

Bobcats and Poetry

A few select birds are singing, snow is melting, and male animals are wandering around in a daze. All signs of Spring! In fact, there was a massive bobcat behind the house a week ago...it was at least 50 lbs. and was as tall as my 70 pound dog. Speaking of dog, here she is! Her name is Bomag.

Frankie, my son, has been sick with a cold for the past week...as have I. He's also cutting molars. Thus, the past eight days have been HELL!

On a happy note, one of my poems, a prose poem called "Monuments," has been accepted for publication in the journal The Fourth River. It will come out in the Fall - finally, an acceptance out of the dozens of rejections. I'll upload it once it's in print...several months from now. I keep trying to publish, though it's very difficult. Funnily, one acceptance makes all the rejections worth it. Go figure?

Colds and Murder

I just found out that a friend of a friend has been murdered - shot in the back of the head while she slept. I didn't know her; never met her, yet her death bothers me. Maybe it's because I've been sick since Christmas and my spirit hasn't recovered as well as my body. Maybe it's because she was younger than me. Or maybe it's simply because she didn't have the chance to fight back.

This poem has nothing to do with a young woman's unfortunate death. But, somehow, it made me think of her.


Six People near Pittsburgh

I
Peach carnations painted on cheap seat covers stretch
across Fords rusted on Rt. 30. Vandals have ripped
the white Grateful Dead T-shirt floating from the door.
Bears dance across the sun visor, rainbow colors and jewels
protecting magazines and water bottles
from the August sunlight.

Activists strut mismatched cardboard,
turbulent leftovers robed in polyester and cologne.
They stood on the sidewalk as I drove by
wondering if that tall thin man worked,
wondering if the two-year old riding
that teenager’s shoulders had a father,
wondering what they were fighting for.
They walked in circles, cigarettes
bouncing onto grass and matches
stuck between mailboxes and curbs.

They wore t-shirts that said WWJD?
and held signs painted in orange and green. I read them:
Damnation.
Raise hell.
Set fires.

II
I was taught to leave the light on,
to let birds perch on my windowsill,
to let fireflies and moths in
to land on my clothes and pillows,
wings of the finch like flowers
open to experience.

The birds eye me while AAA loads the old Ford
onto its cold heavy back.

Dead beetles still cling to the windshield
to be consumed by flame.

Weather

It's getting cold. The weather has been very mild, but winter is indeed on its way, though it won't be official for another month. We should have snow on the ground by now...maybe it's global warming? The winters of my youth were nothing like those of today. Those months were white, icy, with air that seemed to snap. Oh well. I prefer warmth over chill anyway.


Fuel

Glazed donuts burn
really well when they’re stale.
My husband remembers the feed sacks
of leftover donuts
given to his family once a week.
A neighbor worked
at Dunkin’ Donuts and took the unsold
pastries home to split
between her family and his.
My mother-in-law says it saved
the chicken’s asses
as well as theirs.
You can only find
so much wood within walking distance.
The snow was deep
that year. He loved
feeding the donuts
to the stove, fire
snapping from wood
and sugar. The donuts would explode
but produced good heat, fuel
for fire and chickens.

The Little Rat

My son was a rat for Halloween. Okay, he was a mouse, but I call him Rat, so it fit. Why do I call him Rat? It's been his nickname since he was one week old because he was (and is) so squeaky. Stop turning your noses up because you don't like rats.

This poem never happened. Why do people always assume that poetry is truth? They aren't. A poem usually is based in fact...based. One image may be reality, the rest? Fiction. Poets create characters and plots just like a novelist...just in a different form.


Afternoon Discovery

I play pool. I aim
toward the faces
scribbled with marker, courtesy
of my 17-month old son who snuck
his fingers into my scrapbook crate.
Each tiny ball sports
different colored eyes
and what -I think- are pointy
teeth. Some have four noses
and undulating mouths
or a sinister grin. We sit
on the scratchy carpet
while I show him how to aim
and hit. He colors my hands red.

The game is one of those miniature pool tables, in case you're confused.

Deer at Home

It was 24 degrees this morning at 6:26, and had warmed to 27 by 8:30. The lawn was white with frost and squirrels ran from tree to tree while my dog danced in front of the sliding glass door. She loves to chase squirrels.

There was a buck behind the house yesterday afternoon. I've seen a few huge ones lately, eight points, and even a 10. But, usually there is just a solitary doe amongst cut tree tops and the chirping of chipmunks.


Dusk in the Appalachians

Flies buzz through first frost.
In my backyard
a doe licks
at a half-dissolved salt block
on a hickory stump,
residue stained into rotting bark
and sacks of spider eggs.

Yearlings and spikes fight for dominance in goldenrod.
The deer flicks her tongue across her lips
and into her nose like my grandfather’s Holsteins
sold five years ago
for dog food, toys and treats,
shot in the head
like this doe come November.

She fades with sun and laps
the square of white,
the neighbor’s cows moaning
in the field behind her.

Toddlers and Clovis Culture

My son's birthday party went really well, despite the fact that my husband and I were running behind. He got plently of clothes and toys, but punked out halfway through the party. Turning two is tough. I can't help but think about the people of the past, the little boys, toddlers, who lived off the land, who wandered from place to place, who played with rocks, sticks, leaves, and bones. Over 10,000 years ago people lived in America and hunted mammoths. I think of these Paleoindians often: did they celebrate birthdays? Did the women hunt? Did men cook and sew? Did the little boys throw stones, like my son throws miniature metal tractors? A prose poem, then, to these ancient peoples known as Clovis, based on an archaeological site in New Mexico.


Blackwater Draw, 8,900 B.C.

I

In the grasslands of the Llano Estacado he crouched, hearing more acute than a mother dire wolf suckling her sons. Lemon quartz tinsel slumbered beneath the smooth tops of the short pines and dotting of spruce lining the open plains, almost ready to cast warmth onto the cricket crawling across his toe, noiseless body reflecting a hawk nose and a thin, tight-lipped face.

His eyes rose toward the sky, strange points of still lightning glinting like a baby girl's newly cut eyeteeth. Cold light, but he did not shiver from the chilled dampness that clung to his long stringy hair hanging behind his ears. Muscles tensed and flexed beneath a mist of sweat, thick eyelashes unblinking.

He hefted his throwing stick, tracing the dried sinew and blood stuck to the wooden handle, felt the weight of it and the comfort of the spear hooked to the end, several feet in length, the rough, crude looking flint point flaked into shape with precision. Robust and deadly. A whistle shot into the air. His dark eyes lowered and his bark brown feet dug into the ground, ready to spring.

II

A rumbling snort shook the water of the shallow pond, reeds bending with snapping protest against the weight of the mammoth as it collapsed. A wail escaped the adult bull, already injured from a recent fight, fatal to man, as spears flung from atlatl's rang through the opening horizon to stick into hide and lung, an eye and skull, dying the blue clay red.

Wading into the water the band ripped into the carcass, skinning and cutting flesh and bringing it to shore, blades and sharp knives shaving ribs and husking legs. Some men stood watch on the bank,
spears raised in a gesture of warning to other hungry animals, cat and bear. A young boy ran to tell the women.

The useful parts taken, the Columbian mammoth was left in its place, virtually nothing left but a mass of bones that lay partially submerged in the black water. New shelters made, strips of drying meat hung from branches, he stood and watched, fingering a piece of chert, his daughter asleep against his leg.