| — | 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, correcting the AP Reporter who said she was “just going to call her Annie.” (via shereader) |
before i understood what
a maiden name meant
before i could comprehend
the difference between Johnson & Retelle & Tallard
my cousins & i spent every summer
on the acre of my grandma’s backyard
at 1613 capital avenue we were royalty
running rampant each of us chose a
different tree to take from my grandma
insisted on it we never realized how
it ate away at the foundation of her home
lyndsay loved the five tall pines
each planted for one of grandma’s mistakes
one for my mother & one for her father
& three for the other crazies
one afternoon
somewhere between boredom & desire
she climbed to the tip top of the spine for
the freshest needles until it bent crooked
under her weight
her little sister & i stood at the bottom
almost told her to jump that we
we could her but we didn’t want
her to have all that tree to herself
so we began chopping it at the trunk
splitting our inheritance into thirds
because our generation learned family
means loving each other like a lumberjack
loves the forest
halley could never help herself around
the only weeping willow tearing down
branches dangling like grabbing fistfuls of money
she tempted me behind its curtain
told me the world is made from firewood
only waiting for the axe and if i just
stopped to inhale i could
already smell the smoke
for me there was nothing but the pair of birches
i tore off their skin like peeling old scabs
until finally i could count the rings perfectly
until i could retrace it to the roots
our last august in the backyard
halley & lyndsay started making dresses
out of everything deciduous & evergreen
crafted broaches out of bark
until they bled the trees for all they were worth
that september the bank started knocking
on the maple front door tacking on words
like final & foreclosure but i couldn’t do anything
so one night i broke back into 1613
started peeling again like primal instinct
licking splinters onto the staircase wall
where portraits used to hang but
i was too late
the termites had already
taken away too much of the a-frame
now from her new apartment
my grandma sends cards with
birthday checks & news clippings
but it’s all printed on birch paper
freshly minted still soaked in blood
she only has what i haven’t taken
i can in everything just to save
for the first summer she is gone
when i will plant her a forest of redwoods
an expanse of unpetrified love
it will be my way of finally saying
grandma i do not want
not anymore not from you
the mother of my mother
you have already given us
too much
#cantwaitfor2012 @kaitrokowski
Me at WOWPS 2011, Columbus Ohio.
Photo by the incomparable Jonathan Weiskopf
Spencer Retelle is currently singing “some place only we know” in the shower.
#theluckiestgirlintheworld
one of my favorite poems written by one of my favorite poets written about another one of my favorite poets. my life is too layered. i should write about it.
My friend Kait is the type of person who shows up on your fucking stoop at 3am. Smokes your weed, sleeps on your couch. Then misses the goddamn bus out in the morning.
My friend Kait is the type of person who pours whiskey into red wine and then names the new concoction after herself.
My friend…
Mary Taibs. NYC-Urbana WOWps qualifier - Diva Slam. Bowery Poetry Club. New York City. January 4, 2011.
LOVE THIS WOMAN.
No Gravity
This is something i am very very excited to share. its taken a few weeks to pull off. the official video for No Gravity. Thanks to Sean Gallagher for the film/editing work and Thom O’Connor for the music.
please share.
too inspiring.
Hey all. So since I’m trying to do that whole poetry thing… I’m auditing a class at Mac to workshop and draft a final project of creative writing. This is the first poem of my second draft. If you are interested in reading more, and/or helping me make it an even more amazing collection, YOU KNOW MY NAME YOU KNOW MY DIGITS. So I believe in not writing disclaimers. Just to drop a context hint: These are all story poems from the perspective Dorothy (from the Wizard of Oz)’s son, David, and his dark excursion back to mother’s fantasy.
Working title: Monsters in Technicolor. . David There was always something about the clouds. My great auntie Emily tells me it’s from my mom. Even though her irises were browner, bigger than a cow’s. Staring skyward so much as a little girl, my eyes became the color of cumulus. All airy and blue. . My pupils closing fast like fists looking into the sun, I wonder how it looks seeing buildings taller than two stories, besides farms. Brick red wood skyscrapers, scattering the horizon like cardinal directions on a compass. Sticking straight up, they lead . the way back home.
