A carefully cultivated, fully composted first crop
of green beans–so much better than canned.
That one tunnel with the bend
where you always panic briefly and want to stop
when you can’t see either end.
A subterranean pimple, perfectly round,
on the cusp of emerging, not quite ready to pop.
The good, the bad, the ugly, the suspense,
the tension, the heat of it, the standoff.
A phoenix dragging and puking and down
and not yet gloriously finding its lift.
A small white flower blooms somewhere,
in some ugly, neglected spot .
A paparazzo sets his camera down,
and a famous baby gets a private smile.
Every time you thank a teacher,
she finds the energy to do just one more thing
before she goes to sleep.
Every time you thank a teacher,
the darkness slides a little back.
A fussy child eats five carrot sticks
and barely even notices.
Every time you thank a teacher,
he makes another phone call,
for the student who has no one,
literally no one, else who cares.
Every time you thank a teacher,
an astronaut tightens a bolt,
a fledgeling just totally sticks it
landing on a flimsy limb,
a desperate person’s car starts one more time.
But every time you could have
thanked a teacher and didn’t,
and every time you thank a teacher
without even trying to do your part,
your small part (voting?), to deal with
the colossal amounts of garbage
teachers have to deal with all the time,
well, you’re the one to blame because
that pretty little flower’s dead.
That famous baby grows up weird,
and the teachers just can’t even, not tonight.
The darkness grows darker and more.
That fussy child grows up to be
a generally unpleasant person,
the space station is less secure,
and the fuzzy wuzzy fledgeling falls to its death.
Look–there’s that sad sack, late for work,
with a car that will not turn over
not this time, not at all, it’s just dead.
The car’s dead.
It’s all dead and
it’s all your fault.
Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Bloem or Pog, Teaching
Tagged poetry, Teaching, thank a teacher
“I was in the house when the house burned down”
Warren Zevon
The gears are grinding hard today, the sound
of conflict, disruption, and general unrest
is metallic, shearing, unpleasant at best.
The eruption of what used to be safe underground
is nothing like a garden coming up in spring
and also nothing like a shy girl speaking up.
It’s not a birth and also not a blossoming.
It is something like taking a painful dump.
And yet it’s very nearly exhilarating
to watch someone say “Enough. No more.
I’m done. Just stop .” Even for those who think
they could endure.
It really does and doesn’t matter.
You’re just trying to enjoy your sandwich, to appreciate
the privilege of being alive on this crazy day.
______
Because Letterman ended last night, I’ve been thinking again about Warren Zevon. We told our son at breakfast this morning that we considered “Zevon” as a first name for him, as well as “Warren.” We went with Wendell instead, but we’re guessing by the time he’s in college, he’ll have met at least a couple of Zevon’s.
Crazy week at work. So crazy, I probably can’t even talk about it. But wow.
Anyway, this Rolling Stone compilation is nice, of some serious moments from Mr. Letterman, and in the Zevon one, he says his famous line, “Enjoy every sandwich.”
_____
Even broken glass can be pretty.
(image by Duke Lenoir photo from Creative Commons–attribution license.)
Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Authenticity, Bloem or Pog, Burnout, Work Life
Tagged UW Colleges, UW System, Work Stress
I was wrong about which blog post it was, but I’m STILL freaking excited that my colleague at UW-Richland, Faye Peng, translated some of my writing into Chinese!
It’s the post previous to this, “Here’s What It’s Like” (which is, as of this moment, up to 228 views).
She didn’t translate the whole thing so I’ll just say that I know budget cuts aren’t really like the things I described. Oh–also–not sure how the movie references play in translation–there are references to The Titanic (which I’ve never actually seen), Seven (which I have seen), and Sophie’s Choice (which I’ve seen a LOT).
Here’s how I was wrong. I first thought that my found poem using all direct quotes from the amazing TV show The Wire), “Contemplating the Declining Percentage of Investment in Higher Education and in Particular Legislators and Governors who Nevertheless Cheer Hard for their Sports Teams, While Also Mulling the Curious Maneuvers of University Leadership that May or May Not Yield Good Results for Those of Us in the Trenches, So to Speak,” had been translated into Chinese.
_____
威斯康星大学预算削减的痛
这种疼就像，
他举起手，
你以为他要说“停下”，
但是他挥拳打向你；
对终身教授，
这种痛就像，
你坐在救生艇上，
你看着其他人被淹没，
你可以紧闭双眼，
你可以捂住你的双耳，
可是他们正在被淹没；
这种痛就像，
你抱着孩子逃离火车，
可是你不得不决定，
你救哪一个孩子，
放弃哪一个孩子；
这种痛就像，
你面对系列杀人犯，
他让你决定从你身上的哪一个部位切下血肉
[发怒][发怒][发怒][大哭][大哭][大哭]
Posted in Bloem or Pog, Poetry, Politics, Searching, Teaching
Tagged chinese translation, poetry, poetry in chinese
New Orleans, sexy tuba, shiny and hot,
I love your blackened bologna, your powdered sugar kiss,
but this is not my life. I’m glad it’s not.
I’ve rubbed fat blisters on both my feet
rambling the Vieux Carre. Such sweet excess,
New Orleans! You’re a sexy tuba, shiny and hot,
redirecting traffic so the music doesn’t stop.
I love every one of your Marsalises.
This is not my life. I’m glad it’s not,
but watching a finger of fog pointing at the top
of the St. Louis Cathedral, I know I will miss
New Orleans, sexy tuba, shiny and hot,
whose sweaty kiss gives my hair ringlet-
driven waves and curls, which I love, but this—
this is not my life. I’m glad it’s not.
There’s music everywhere. Even the drinks
sound like songs. Contessa. Sazerac. O absinthe!
O New Orleans, sexy too muchness, already hot—
this is not my life. I’m glad it’s not.
_____
This was my first time at the conference for the Popular Culture Association–it was pretty great. I heard a lot of really good poetry & was so happy to meet new poets and talk poetry. Went to good panels–I have such smart colleagues in the UW Colleges! And of course I enjoyed the food and beverage and music aspect.
Let me say a little more about the Blackened Bologna. It was a house special at Evangeline, and I would recommend the restaurant and the dish, invented by an old friend of mine, Jim O’Shea. We hung out in Carbondale about a million years ago (well, 30+) and haven’t seen each other since, but thanks to Facebook, I knew he was a chef in NOLA, so I made a point of going to Evangeline & I’m glad I did. I talked all my UW Colleges peeps and some new friends into coming along, and everyone’s food was good. I could NOT resist ordering the Blackened Bologna–too hilarious. But it actually tasted really good, and if you’re having nostalgic thoughts of friend balonie curling up in the pan, forget that–this is a serious hunk o’ meat.
But, even though I had an awesome time, I am happy, happy, happy to be going home to my family and to Wisco, even though there are budget cuts looming like a thunderhead, and even though everything is still early-spring cold and raw and brown and gray.
The funniest thing was every one of us was wearing black the morning we got these. Rookie mistake!
The Contessa from the French 75–now I now what to do with all the rhubarb that SHOULD be coming up soon in Wisco!
A sazerac from the Mahogany Bar.
I got to see the Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet–phenomenal!
Best use of flamingos award.
The river this morning.
Fog coming in off the river.
Posted in Bloem or Pog, Drinking, NaPoWriMo, On Wisconsin, Poetry, Uncategorized, Work Life, Writing
Tagged Jason Marsalis, New Orleans, PCAACA15, poetry, Popular Culture Association, Villanelle
—a found poem using direct quotes from the first season of The Wire
The game is rigged. But you can’t lose if you don’t play.
You don’t hand no money to nobody that matters,
you don’t get no product from nobody that matters.
We ain’t got shit. But is there any other fucking way?
You start to follow the money, you don’t know
where the fuck it’s going to take you. Shit.
I’m starting to worry more about the ones that claim
to love me than the ones that don’t.
You come at the king, you best not miss.
You know something? You’re no good for people, man.
I mean, damn, everybody around you. Christ.
You’re back from the dead. You rolled away the stone.
All I know is I just love the job. I know the shit is weak
but shit is weak all over. Cool. Whatever. Shit. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fucker motherfucker fuck me.
So you write everything down? Yeah. Everything.
Sparrow on barbed wire. By See-ming Lee from Flickr, Creative Commons
_____
If you want a good voice that isn’t quoting lines from The Wire, check out Chuck Rybak’s Sad Iron blog.
Posted in On Wisconsin, Poetry, Teaching
Tagged Found Poetry, poetry, The Wire, UW Budget Cuts
They say you get the hour back in the fall
but it’s so old by then you’ll hardly know
it’s yours. Remember when your postpartum ghost
convinced you that you’d been sent home, arms full
of someone else’s baby? That wasn’t true.
Come fall, don’t fret that time. Just sleep right through.
But what if we got to pick which hour to lose?
The wasted hour? The bad phone call? (To choose–
as if we could control the clock–but wait–we do.)
What interest would that time have then accrued?
Would we regret the moment and the choice?
Would we learn how badly our intentions screw things up?
Yes, and yet–we want to scream it–Cease! Desist!
to our mistakes, to family, friends, and also, yes,
to the officer who shot to kill and not to stop.
—–
I feel the need to say this very carefully.
Another young black man has been shot and killed by the police. There are peaceful protests planned.
I am praying today for the family and for the city of Madison.
I can say, carefully and logically, that I am not anti-police, that I truly appreciate how they put themselves in harm’s way so many times to protect the people they serve. I understand, logically, and legally, that a police officer can have just cause for shooting. But as much as I believe those sentences, I also know I write them from a position of middle-class white privilege, so I almost wanted not to write this paragraph at all.
What is more important to say, for me to say, is that the reason police keep NOT getting the benefit of the doubt is because of persistent racism. That’s what they just found in studying Ferguson. And there are ongoing conversations about the problems in Madison related to race. This latest round of talks was sparked by a special editorial by Rev. Alex Gee in the Cap Times called “Justified Anger.”
I find that editorial thoughtful and disturbing. It should disturb me. It should move me to act, but I don’t always know how to act. Or when.
I might not know what to do, but I did know one thing not to do.
I’ve been thinking about Daylight Saving Time, which I hate, and I’m working on some flash fiction about it, and the first two lines of the above poem occurred to me yesterday, and as I began writing it, I wanted it to to be a mildly thoughtful but mostly silly poem about the urge to mess with time, to stop time, to take things out of time.
But what would that mean, to write a mostly silly poem when once again another young black man is dead at the hands of the police, and this time, really close to home? I couldn’t do it.
It’s not much, but I made this poem and this post not totally about me and my silly thoughts.
Of all the recent hours I’d like to lose, I’d like to lose the one where Anthony Robinson died.
Tony Robinson, in a picture from his mother’s phone.
“Traditionally it is bad luck to keep your Christmas Decorations up beyond Twelfth Night – the last of the 12 Days of Christmas.” Plymouth Herald
Some years I can’t wait for the tree
to come down. I want it up
the day after Thanksgiving and then
everything put away before New Year’s.
My friend Bellamy left hers up
through Valentine’s. Probably more than once.
A real tree—brown by the time
she got it out to the curb.
But this year I’ve wanted Christmas
to last a little longer, for the event
part of Advent not to be here quite yet.
I’m not sure why. I had good holidays,
a nearly perfect mix of quiet and fun.
Maybe that’s why. Of course that’s why.
I’ve brought out other candles to use
because it’s still dark so early in the day.
It’s still cold. I’m still longing
for something to happen and yet not
wanting anything to change.
Waiting for the wise gifts to come.
Just a few of the non-holiday candles I’ve dug out. On a clean stove!
(I actually also think one of the reasons I’m not ready to be done with the season is that I love, love, love Aimee Mann’s One More Drifter in the Snow. I’m not ready to stop listening to it. So I won’t.)
Gathering it up to put it away. NOTE THE HOLY BLATZ TRAY we use for the advent candles.
Because look where it got him, good old D.T., dead before 40,
with some earth-alteringly good poems, sure, but still,
most of us won’t die young, our underwear not only not clean
but possibly unspeakably not clean, and so as we hurtle
into the darkness of winter, the cold, the vortex
awaiting to suck down our moods and run up our bills,
let’s opt for not raging. Let’s do what we can.
Now is the time for the lighting of candles,
the drinking of port, the wearing of wool.
Time for the roasting until they are sweet
of root vegetables with their homely names:
oh turnip, oh beet, oh parsnip,
join your good pal potato,
your fat cousin carrots,
and give us the sun you soaked in through your leaves
all summer long and hid underground until now.
Give us this day our daily whatever
we need to keep going. It might be enough.
Don’t worry. Something will turnip.
The rose that was still blooming has been moved,
but I should warn you (and I hope you’re forgive me)
I left the lopped-off thorny stems for you.
I know it’s not your fault, construction crew.
It wasn’t your idea, this demolishing.
The rose that was still blooming has been moved
to the backyard; I may have killed it in the move.
Just watch out when you get to work on my street–
I left the lopped-off thorny stems for you.
I don’t have a truck anymore. I wasn’t enthused
about another trip to the dump with the debris
of the rose that was still blooming. It’s been moved
for regrading and storm drains. Whoo hoo!
Let’s hear it for your very big machines!
I left the lopped-off thorny stems for you.
Whatever’s stopping progress is going to lose
so I didn’t try to slow or stop anything.
The rose that was still blooming has been moved.
I left the lopped-off thorny stems for you.
_____
Roses and irises–all moved to the backyard.
marniere 