I cannot quite see you
insisting on staying beneath the sheets
until the sun rises you from your almosts.
And though I will never know you for sure
you are my why.
May the dreams heaped on your shoulders
be not a burden
but a slow release of yes.
I cannot notice you
for you have passed from noticing.
You are already on to the better things
like honey suckle on a fence
we pass on a walk
to nowhere but now.
May you never be trapped
by the trappings of memory;
may you never be tainted
by overthought.
I watched as you rested
overexposed
sentenced to the page
lacking hope
high on nostalgia
unable to be undone.
May you be remembered
in the mind of children
as they try to fall asleep.
Where was it?
We lose detail one by one
laidout first house undone
handle on the bathroom cupboard gone.
Between him and she
pronouned space,
prolonged switch in tense
When no one watches,
mystery becomes became
will you remember the handle
or the way hands graze?
Our brains limited maps
rarely road trip beyond;
we pave the future
on an incomplete now.
A stack of hey
a pail of water
hunger and thirst
the curse of nothing
being worse
inaction
lack thereof
unassurance
frozen
lost.
Two things never equal
everything costs
your mind weighs and balances
constantly fraught
the stars too far
the desk too close
the subsequent actions
in need of equations unknown.
What else gets diametrically opposed?
Love and independence
vital signs interwoven
in the middle of
tomorrow coming.
Teacher, teacher
strange perspective
more didactic
than intended.
Prospective lessons
on a bullet:
melt it down to elements,
discuss in depth what matters;
pitch it as an artifact
a relic of the war
discuss what we are or are not
should or should not
be fighting for;
maybe I should hide it
far, far away
amass a shield around it
protect resilient beliefs in peace.
Maybe a free-write on the bullet
would truly serve us best
dredge up associations
often left masked
defense mechanized
tucked under the folds of outbursts
tantrums
things untold
which compose the reasons
we all behave certain ways
leading back to my fear
that perhaps it’s best made
for me.
Point the gun this way?
It’s twirling in my fingers
this notion of a last chance
so many things unsure
no rules
you me I we this room
its gray walls.
I would like to take your eyeballs collectively
in a pool
chemical free
to return at the end of class.
Alternately,
an optometry degree required
to see anything 35 ways.
I watched while you towered over them
sneering evilly and then laughed it off over lunch.
I listened to you scream “you poisonous rats,â€
loud enough to disrupt us next door.
I heard your Texas drawl whisper
“I wouldn’t piss on them if they were burning.â€
I tasted the blood on my bitten back tongue
when you said a woman never could or should be president.
I felt you tense when kids wrote you notes
your slanderous apocrypha dispelled and cursed.
I knew your fear when you returned them to me typed,
inserted sic by errors with a note detailing my role—
their English teacher after all.
May your larynx be lobotomized
so you can say horrible things but never laugh.
May you have I heart Hilary tattooed on your chest
with the needle you drove a student to use.
May your hands get stuck in the holes your fists made
in the office wall above a child’s head,
May you remain there chained
so children can ask you the same questions again and again
until you answer calmly without disdain.
May a student be knighted for breaking your legs
and honey I shrink you to figurine size
May you in such a state be left in charge
of grown adults, no hope to scar.
I’m from New York City
where I never had the chance
to move here
and not write
love poems
for two years,
where optimism was a form of radicalism
so strong
I didn’t know I was hopeful.
Fast pace so how it was
I didn’t know how to appreciate slow.
Speed so sure
I forget how to bring it
find myself a routine of who knows why
trying to do what’s right every moment
appreciating almost nothing complete.
This girl,
this young student of mine
who should have been
could have been
I’m trying to see how she could still be
the wholest human I ever met.
Eleven going on
thirty three, maybe more
come eighth grade,
her best friend’s pregnant
she didn’t get in to Stuyvesant,
writes me a letter of unmerited awe,
“You’ve been able to learn and teach so much
and you’re not even a quarter of a century yet.â€
She looked at me and thought
you made it.
How innocent the unknowns
what I was made of
the grace filled tables
of multi-parental love
(divorce the latest greatest excuse we have
for more advantageous help on hand).
Make it?
Make it would mean
the still satisfaction
of every molecule moving
in this magnificent city
on the same plane of appreciation
for what it takes to make it
from wherever you came.
You’re why I make it in everyday
you’re what making it means to me
you’ll make it yet, I believe.
Let letters live
so many syntactical turns
to meander.
I apologize for any imagined happenings
my mind goes places
many misfutureconjugations
(English is tough that way).
Thank you for the evening.
How nice to see you.
Enjoy the warm
weather.
You have ideas that plague you like a tick
and yet you have not sat to write in weeks.
without the time, you’ll surely soon be sick.
Is being authentic merely a shtick?
Defenses allured, you attempt antiques,
you have ideas that plague you like a tick.
Have you faith enough to write, take the risk,
pages of abandon, clothes in a boutique,
without the time, you’ll surely soon be sick.
Distractions so quickly become caustic
without focus your mind just fears critique.
You have ideas that plague you like a tick.
You feel the panic to do something quick
the clock omnipotent you feel so meek,
without the time, you’ll surely soon be sick.
The psychograph of days surmounts in brick,
balance a sought after beauteous technique,
you have ideas that plague you like a tick,
without the time, you’ll surely soon be sick.