Spire Tops Trade Center

Workers cheered.

Spectators applauded.

The spire, draped in an American flag,

 set atop One World Trade Center.

The silver structure

will serve as a broadcast atenna,

a signal for aircraft

a symbol of the resurrection

of One World Trade Center.

It’s a proud day for the city.

With the 408 foot spire added, One World Trade Center is 1,776 feet high, symbolic of the year the United States declared independence.  It is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. It took 11-plus years, but New York City has now restored its skyline.

© 2013 Catherine Giordano

Please share this poem by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please ""follow" so you don't miss any of my poems.

Kisses

On his album

“Kisses on the Bottom”

Paul McCartney

takes a casual stroll

down Tin Pan Alley.

Classic songbook fare,

the core of countless jazz albums,

McCartney’s stab at the nostalgia market,

framed as a Valentine’s Day gift

to his new wife, Nancy.

A late career roll,

this slow dance with the misty past.

A let-down.

These songs are meant to swing;

McCartney lets them plod.

Sometimes you need to know when to quit.

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

Please share this poem by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please "follow" so you don't miss any of my poems.

Florida Film Festival

Film.  Food.  Fun.

Catch the latest films.

Mingle with celebrities.

Chat with filmmakers.

Florida Film Festival:

The best cinema.

The hottest parties.

The fabulous food.

Non-stop fun. 

The Florida Film Festival starts next Friday, April 5, 2013.  Here’s a news print poem I did about it last year.  I took it from an ad.  Here is the poster for the 2013 Florida Film Festival.

Please share this poem by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please "follow" so you don't miss any of my poems.

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

Heee is the poster for the 2013 Florida Film Festival.

Here's the poster for the 2013 Film Festival.

State of the Union Focus

Our unfinished task:

Restore the basic bargain

that built this country—

the idea

that if you work hard,

if you meet your responsibilities,

you can get ahead,

no matter where you come from,

no matter what you look like,

no matter who you love.

Our unfinished task:

Make sure that government works

on behalf of the many,

not just the few.

Barack Obama’s speeches are so poetic that I have to do very little to them to transform them into a poem.

  

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

Please share this poem by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please ""follow" so you don't miss any of my poems.

This picture is from http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com

Pickles

Pickles lead mysterious lives,

trolling the briny depths.

They seem content.

Shoulder to shoulder

tightly packed,

treading their bracken aquarium.

The pickle fisherman

descends two brave fingers

into the cold green waters.

The angler tastes sweet and salt

herb and spice

chilly present and summer past.

In a previous life,

the pickle knew warm days

and cool smooth skin.

It lived a previous life as a cucumber.

Everybody liked my poem "Ticked Off" (see December 19, 2012 post) that was about cucumbers, I thought you might like this one about pickles.  This poem bout pickles is from August 22, 2012. 

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

Please share this poem by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please "follow" so you don't miss any of my poems.

River-of-Grass Beast

A monster Burmese Python,

captured in the Everglades,

breaking the state size record,

stretching seventeen feet seven inches,

bursting with 87 eggs.

This thing is monstrous.

It’s a foot wide.

The snake was under surveillance,

fitted with a radio transmitter,

like a captured spy,

a double agent,  a Judas snake.

It’s usefulness at an end.

it was euthanized.

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

Please share this poem by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please "follow" so you don't miss any of my poems.

On Tuesday August 14, 2012, there was a story in the Orlando Sentinel about the Burmese Pythons in the Everglades.  I did a news print poem about it, but I didn’t post it because I used another poem that day.

Florida has instituted “The Great Python Challenge” to try to reduce the numbers of these snakes in Florida.  It’s a one-month hunting season for pythons with a prize of $1,500 for whoever kills the most and a $1,000 prize for whoever gets the largest.

Burmese pythons in the Everglades are big news right now.  Senator Bill Nelson was out hunting pythons last week, and Stephen Colbert did a segment about the python hunt on his show this week. 

This picture is from http://smithsonianscience.org

The Best of 2012

My new book is available on amazon.com.  News Print Poetry: The Best of 2012 

It was fun going back and reviewing the year in poetry. The hard part was choosing which poems to include in the anthology. They are all the best.

I ended up including 179 poems. I selected those that concerned important events, those that worked particularly well as poems, and those that just tickled my fancy.  

I hope my readers will want to have the hard copy. It will be fun to reread the poems in coming years and remember the events of 2012. 

It  makes a great gift for someone born in 2012 or someone with any significant life event (marriage, graduation, etc. during the year.)  

The poems are taken from news stories in the Orlando Sentinel so many of the poems are Florida-centric or Central Florida-centric. It make a nice hostess gift when you sty with friends or family in Florida, a nice  housewarming gift for a new Florida resident, or a nice gift for Floridians to give to the folks "up north."

Further, your purchase of this book will be your gift to me. The blog was a labor of love for 12 months, but earning a little money from my "labor-of-love" would be nice.

 Please share this post by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.