Poem: September 9, 2021

Lock the Door

Let’s say you went to college

With Victor Frankenstein, like

Maybe he was on your floor,

Even in the dorm room next door, 

Raging as he would be in all

Of his mercurial madness, swept

Constantly back and forth between

Ecstatic philosophical highs and

Drunken, regretful lows, and 

Who knows, maybe roping some

Poor first-year dope into his

Strange experiments, down in

The quad or up on the top floor

Of the library, among the dusty

And forgotten stacks, and yes, 

Someone probably should notice

The wild eyes and uncomfortable

Laugh, someone should say

Something to an RA or report

The strange odors that waft from

Under his door, postered as it is,

With Goth bands and warnings

To abandon all hope, ye who enter…

But we’re all pretty stressed, and 

We all keep strange hours, and

If we’re being honest, no one wants

A confrontation with the guy 

Who’s always mumbling to himself.

No one has that kind of energy.

No one has room for more risk. 

Keep your own burdens close

And try to avoid the explosions.

Poem: September 8, 2021

Troubled Times

It’s Suicide Prevention Week

so some of the kids have

hung posters around school

with glittery messages in

block letters- You Matter, 

Tomorrow Will Be a Better Day,

You Are Powerful, You Are 

Loved- that sort of thing.

Honestly, a lot of it blends

into the usual paper outreach

that screams for attention.

You know- Join Debate Club, 

Don’t Drink and Drive, Picture

Day, Censorship Tears Us Apart.

I did notice that some group

of miscreants used a suicide

poster on the second floor

to host an informal poll:

Tits or Ass- Vote Here! Kids

are awful sometimes. Like this

TikTok challenge they’re doing,

ripping soap dispensers off

the walls in the restrooms.

Stuff like that. It seems so

senseless and destructive

until you remember how

trapped they are and how

helpless and angry they feel.

Covid has taken three years

off their childhoods. Days

they will never get back.

And then you notice that 

next to where the soap

dispenser used to be, one

of the posters with the 

perforated tabs that have

the suicide hotline number

is taped to the wall, just 

below eye-level, and three

of the tabs are gone, like

a mouth full of broken teeth.

Poem: September 7, 2021

Maintaining

Some people won’t 

straighten their desks

at the end of the day, 

but I do, most days,

and I sweep the floor 

as well, ten to twelve

minutes weaving 

among the furniture,

picking up the dust and crumbles, 

the discarded gum wrappers,

the orange pencil shavings, 

the grass from the ball field, 

whatever might have

fallen behind. 

I’m finding and taking

these broken bits of day 

and making it clear that they 

have no place here tomorrow. 

I am erasing, creating 

a clean slate. 

This is my quiet way 

of saying we all matter- 

the students, the custodians, me. 

We all deserve a clean space-

a place we escape,

a place to rest, 

a place to breathe and

a place to start.

Poem: September 3, 2021

To Sleep

I think I’m looking forward.

Who can say what’s going on?

I sleep well enough. I’m comfortable,

but I wake up from dreams

that seem more vivid these days, 

from spaces that are concrete, 

so real, so real, and then I’m awake.

I mean really awake, the kind

of awake to start a day, ready.

Except it’s 2:38 and

nothing’s shaking, for goodness sake.

I think it must be nearly dawn.

Did I set the alarm? Did I forget

my medicine? Where are the cats?

But everything is fine. It’s fine.

It’s just the time and the fact 

that I’m awake, instantly awake.

And it’s not as if I struggle to return

to sleep. I can close my eyes and

drop plenty deep into the vivid spaces

and swim amidst my synapses

until I snap to again at 3:17.

I repeat to sleep, to sleep,

perchance to dream.

 

Poem: September 2, 2021

 Echo, Echo

I would love to make just a little music every day,

but, of course, none of us is given that kind of 

energy, as beautiful as we dream it might be. We

need quiet places for music. Music is the center,

and we need the quiet places to bring the music

nearer, nearer, nearer to our own centers, to hear

the centers of ourselves before we send our music

out into the world where we hope someone else

has found a quiet place to hear us and relate.

Poem: September 1, 2021

Bait and Switch

The kids have been amped up

for about a week now. 

They think we will have to go

virtual because, you know, 

the rumors, and the mitigation

strategies, and the positivity rates.

I guess we thought this year

was going to be different,

was going to be normal.

We all wonder. We all worry.

We’re all human, and uncertainty

stirs us like a blender, and we

just want this to end one way

or another because, let’s be

honest, we’ve all been violated.

And we’ve all been robbed

of a thousand tiny and critical

moments that people used to have. 

We ache for facial expressions 

and for physical proximity. 

We need to feel trust again, but 

trust is in such short supply. 

Poem: August 31, 2021

Today

I am celebrating the last day

of bus duty until next semester, 

and this shipment of new novels,

which means new questions to ask,

and I am celebrating one week

until my fifty-third birthday and

the antibodies my COVID shot

provided to keep me safe,

and I will celebrate Jim Morrison

and The Doors, who I heard

on the radio on my way into work, 

and I celebrate that people are strange.

There are more things in heaven

and earth than are dreamt of

in my philosophy, so I celebrate

and take them as they come.

Poem: August 30, 2021

Mindset (10 Rules Poem)

Black umbrellas bloom

in this cold morning

rain like anxiety or

hopelessness taking root

and curling me up 

into a monstrous ball.

I’m headed to school

in plodding boots

against a current that

is flowing homeward.

I’m as soggy and

limp as old cornflakes.

I am floating cold.

I am Frodo, burdened

in my darkness,

trodding toward Mt. Doom.

But black thoughts bloom

because I am capable

of dreams. I’m free

to see umbrellas or

anxiety, or...flowers-

festivals or funerals.

I’m eating my words 

either way, be they

cornflakes or tomato soup.

Poem: August 27, 2021

This is

My tiny poem

in the cramped crumpled corner

of my grocery list.

I wrote it in class

while you all were creating

your chapter hashtags.

I guess I was bored

because no one had questions

that needed answers.

I could have graded

some question sets or essays.

Clearly I didn’t.