Two Poems

status

location: was at Starbucks today, slowly and carefully making sure my courses were ready for the week.

music: this recording of BWV 545

mood: locked in. teaching basically all day Monday.

Two Poems

The English Honor Society I advise frequently does writing exercises at our meetings, if we have not turned the whole meeting into a workshop. (If you're interested in reading more about these, look for the Sigma Kappa Delta entries under the tag "education".)

I've had these poems lying around for a little bit. I sketched them at the meetings, reading them aloud in my head. I was aiming for a certain sound, a specific affect. I wanted the poems to convey "I know what I'm talking about." This isn't insecurity as much as modeling one way of being on stage. Now, as I'm copying them onto the blog, I'm editing.

In terms of making these deeper–in terms of doing a real edit, trying to continue the craft–I have an idea. I'll quote parts of these in future entries and see what I can do. That'll probably tell me, more than anything else, which lines are keepers and which must be done over. (Or I'll talk myself into claiming all of it is good.)

The Earth to Me

The Earth to me is... what?

Yeah I can leave the house. I can
escape the walls, hit the mall,
maybe once or twice be a tourist.

Everything of the newness, shine, and
flair of Disneyworld. Or American Eagle.

But how to take a walk?

Watch the tribesmen in the jungle,
on National Geographic. Everything
green and alive and messy like
the unfamiliar always is messy.

They don't walk like they're scared.
Or masked with courage. They're just there,
comfortable where they are.

An Earth unafraid to share.

Three Drawn Words: Smartphone, Library, D.

The smartphone in the library buzzes
softly, chimes unstill, almost the sound of clouds.
For a second you don't hear first-period drama
or whether a rental is available near I-20.
Weird moments of transcendence in a world, well,
putting itself together.
I first taught in a charter school
that was a converted office. Jam the telemarketers
in one room, then the other, and now the
students, sorted by dividers, hang
their words, their honest truth, by
the colors, shapes, and patterns demanded
by an older art teacher. They hated her;
it was the brightest spot by far.
Now D. is irritated by the music –
it has gone on too long –
and this moment meets a fair end.