Poems and Pumpkins

I read at Bookfest this weekend and it felt great! The crowd was extremely small maybe 25 people. The organizer thought Bookfest was adverstising, oops, got that wrong. Even so I still at some level forget the audience (not too much, have to check in on their engagement factor) and read. It felt good. When I sat down next to a playwrite/shortstory writer, she said, Damn girl, so I figure I did my job. I mean isn't that what a reading is? That is how I view it I want to astound and amaze through words. Maybe Spalding Gray was hoaky to some people, but he was the first person I saw who kept an auditorium full of people enthralled with words. Just words. He sat at a table and read from his loose script and the whole audience was silent or laughing and it was the most beautiful feeling, my soul hatched butterflies, it was marvy/fabulous and made me cravenous. (I don't know if that is a word, but I like it)

After the reading, we came home and carved pumkins. Aaron's is one of those tall lean pumpkins like him, and mine is short and squat with a grin that has that totally evil/silly thing going on and it frightens me horribly.


For my support team in life: BS morning mostly 94 - 104 and after today, making a more conscious effort to check it in the evening. Still bellydancing.


And now here is the poem I read:

Hunting Season
for Tony

I searched all the no tell motels and found him. Finally. Rather than stay and face me he ran. Not far enough. The rumpled bed sheets and peeling wallpaper hinted at despair. Not nearly enough. I craved torture, but the rabbit might find his hole. All the crucifixes adorning his light fixture would not save his Christian ass. Redemption, too late for that and not nearly enough. He stands at the window, vertical blinds disturbed by his movement of the AK47. The gun he points at me means nothing.

Be content now. Know that I have skinned the rabbit. Take my ashes far from this rot. Return to our woods where we skinny dipped. Scatter me along the lake, feed me to the fish. Then catch one fry it up and eat.
Marta Sanchez