Spring 2010, Volume 8

Poetry by Richard Fein

Smudge Pots

They’d be tempting Molotov cocktails today.
When I was eight I kicked one over.
Some old man scolded; I ran and sweated a three-day dread.
Would the scolding circle the block back to my father’s ears?
Childish mischief then, but terrorism today—
a twitch of rebellion in my kick.
The flames died. They all died one by one—
smudge pots, old-men busybodies, my father.
But I'm still here, remembering
the way smudge pots
once lit dark broken streets—
my father was never told.

 

 

 

 

 

BIO: Richard Fein was Finalist in The 2004 Center for Book Arts Chapbook Competition. He will soon have a Chapbook published by Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has been published in many web and print journals, such as Southern Review, Morpo Review, Perigee, Skyline, Oregon East Southern Humanities Review Touchstone, Windsor Review, Maverick, Parnassus Literary Review, Small Pond, Kansas Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, Exquisite Corpse, Terrain Aroostook Review and many others