Waiting for the Director

the cinematographer was measuring the light
on the cafe set, with the stand-ins having a chat,
just as the characters soon would be

she would occasionally look over his shoulder,
a slight motion that annoyed the cinematographer,
so he gave her that look, which she did not see,
her gaze through the window, to outside,
where she hoped she would see her boyfriend
amongst the passers-by, who were strolling
past the book-shop, oblivious to the clutch
of cast and crew inside, waiting for the director

he wanted to move, to block her view,
but he knew the cinematographer would bark at him
if he did, so he sat still, smitten with her,
wishing someone would script his life, to have her
fall in love with him, while he could only imagine
an accident, a jostle, to get her to notice him,
but he feared he would botch it, the comic relief
instead of the romantic lead, so he sat
very still and waited for her to speak again

when the director and actors arrived on set,
the cinematographer moved behind the camera
to capture the scene, not seeing the drama
that was beginning to unfold right before him

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 23 a la Viv at The Sunday Whirl.

Shame Flows

he was a good boy (in his parents' eyes)
he was loved (for what he did)

so he did what he needed to
to keep their love

he was the dutiful son
he didn't speak unless spoken to
he didn't cry when he was hurt
his room was neat and tidy
his toys on the shelf pristine

he kept mum happy
he kept papa proud

but he didn't know how to keep himself
so he carried the loss

his heart beat
but it only beat him down
its message was
you are unworthy of love
for who you are

shame flowed with each beat
he didn't know what else there was
to fill his heart

it was where his heart was
he carried the loss

/ / /

This poem was written in response to the Better Inside Out prompt at We Write Poems.

It was written very much in response to this sentence from the original prompt idea: "But shame in itself is also a useless state of being, restoring nothing that might have been damaged, and is at root a self-centered point of view."

Threads

take the woolen thread
that natural by-product of sheep
that symbol of the herd
for those who don't yearn
for those who just accept
and sew

choose what you want to fashion
a tapestry or banner
for a corridor of power
a sash or socks
to adorn or warm
or writer's gloves
with the fingertips exposed
take the woolen thread and sew

see the omens - if you can
hear the whispers of the muses
listen to your own yearnings
take the raw emotions of your life
and shape them with verve
take the woolen thread and sew

look into the mirror and don't blink
don't be fooled by the opal surface
look deeply - thrust through the layers
take the woolen thread and sew

clothe us - warm us
comfort us - warn us
we need it
even if we don't know it
just strengthen us
take the woolen thread and sew

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 22 at The Sunday Whirl.

See Dick Run

See Dick run.
Run, Dick, run.

He's not running away
from Jane, but toward Jack.

Jack runs too, leaving Jill behind,
and Dick is happy chasing him.

Run, Dick, run.

Jack is fast, but not too fast.
He wants Dick to catch him.

Dick is starting to catch up.
The grin on his face is huge.

Run, Dick, run.

Dick tackles Jack,
and they tumble in the grass.

They fall, breathing hard,
laughing, limbs entwined.

See Dick walk.
Walk, Dick, walk.

Dick and Jack walk up the hill.
They find a spot beside the well.

They sit together, and hold hands
where no one can see.

/ / /

This poem was written in response to the B 1 prompt at We Write Poems.

My first name is Richard, so I decided my alter ego would be called Dick. I have never been called Dick, as a nickname for my given name. I may have been called a dick, but I'm not sure about that. In fact, that's how I first thought this poem was going to go; I thought of a guy named Dick, who was, well... a dick. But I just couldn't go the obnoxious or sexist route.

Instead, I thought of the Dick and Jane readers. And, for some reason, the nursery rhyme pair of Jack and Jill popped into my head. I began toying with the idea of Dick and Jack being the pair. So, Dick became that person. It occurred to me that the source material I was drawing from supported the heterosexual majority point of view and orientation, and that I would offer an alternative. This poem is my trying to show a little respect to all my gay, lesbian, and bisexual brothers and sisters out there.

I also had in mind two boys I knew many years ago, when they were second graders. They were best friends and thought nothing of holding hands when they walked out to recess together. Even at that age, other students had been acculturated to think it was wrong for boys to hold hands like that. I recall telling a girl who had said something disparaging about them that I didn't see anything wrong with them holding hands. I have no idea what their sexual orientation was, is, or will be, but it doesn't matter. There are sensitive boys out there, and there's a lot right with them.

My Room

This place must be safe,
safe to fall but not fail.

This place should be happy,
pleasing to the senses,
igniting nerves inside bone.

This place defines us.
There are walls and a roof,
a floor to walk on.
We are not born here,
but we all pass through
as learners here.

This place accepts us.
All are cared for.
We can even begin
to accept ourselves here.

This place has a voice.
And it can hold your voice.
Speak. Laugh. Sing.
Question. Answer. Question.

This place is quiet.
I sit here and think,
reflect on the day
and all its doings.

This place is empty.
As I leave it,
I know.

/ / /

This poem was written in response to the Snapshot of Place prompt at We Write Poems.

I was intrigued by Neil's idea, and finally came up with this. I knew immediately what I wanted to do; it just took me a while to put pen to paper.

I knew I wanted to use chakras as my rule of measure. Don't ask me why. The idea just popped into my head. And I wanted to write about my classroom. And yet leave it open to interpretation. So, this poem is constructed with each stanza representing a different chakra, from base, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, to crown. I did a little internet research and used these ideas: self-preservation, self-gratification, self-definition, self-acceptance, self-expression, self-reflection, and self-knowledge. I hope the poem works without knowing what's in these process notes.

rondeau: scrapers

We don't wake with a jolt anymore.
We just scrape across the floor
and look for our dignity,
rummaging in our pockets to see
if we can find any more.

We used to be urgent and aroar.
Now we're just simple and sore.
We used to strive - to be.
We don't wake with a jolt anymore.

We know we should be bold or
work to build scrapers that soar,
but we pass what we see,
cut out all roaring humanity.
We're all aft; there's no one fore.
We don't wake with a jolt anymore.

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 21 at The Sunday Whirl. I was inspired to write a rondeau by an article in the October issue of The Writer which I am currently reading on my nook.

Elementary School Poetry - Week Three

Here are the five poems for week three:

• Dream Variations - Langston Hughes
• The Bat - Theodore Roethke
• Did I Miss Anything? - Tom Wayman
• Blackberry Eating - Galway Kinnell
• Casey at the Bat - Ernest Thayer

I pulled the other two poems from books I have. There is a series of books of poetry for children, and I selected "Dream Variations" from the one on Langston Hughes. It is titled Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes, edited by David Roessel and Arnold Rampersad. "Blackberry Eating" came from A Poem for Every Day! by Susan Moger.

Voices

Boy is sent to his room
without dinner or explanation
"You should know why"
(the voice of passive aggression)

Boy is hurt
but has no outlet
for that emotion
(the voice of anger is also wrong)

So he dampens the flame
says he feels nothing
because that's better than pain
(the voice of thought over emotion)

The boy is blue
the world a sadder place
though no one notices
(the voice of depression grows stronger)

He's a sensitive boy
He's so shy
You know how introverts are
(the voice of rationalization)

So no one sees his pain
he hides it even from himself
but it grows within him
(waiting for the voice of compassion)

/ / /

This poem was written to the 3 + (x) = Poem prompt at We Write Poems. Thanks to Amy Barlow Liberatore for the prompt idea and We Write Poems for using it.

Custodian

He maintains the truth around him,
each and every room in turn.
Every vessel of knowledge matters,
each as important as the one before,
the last, the first, and all between.

He doesn't breeze through his work.
He sweeps away the dust and pencil shavings,
but doesn't wipe away the residue of art,
that which was created so fervently,
if yet without much skill.
He has a trunk at home
filled with his own children's artwork,
and each piece he sees fills him anew.

He sometimes skins his knuckles,
making minor repairs to this and that,
but that doesn't matter. It's just a covering,
as his job doesn't cloak who he is.

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 19 at The Sunday Whirl. Thanks to Brenda, as always, for these wordles. And thanks again for choosing words from one of my poems. It's good to be missed, but it's even better to be back reading and writing again.

Obviously, being back in the classroom has influenced my subject matter.

Elementary School Poetry 180 - Week Two

Here are the five poems I read last week:

• The Arrow and the Song - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• "Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?" - Ron Koertge
• Numbers - Mary Cornish
• Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
• At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border - William Stafford

I still have a student who says, "That was short" when I finish reading a poem. All of these fit on a single page except for "Numbers". There was some discussion of the last stanza of that one, a bit of confusion about what to make of "three boys", "two Italians", and "one sock".

I think I'm going to drop "Ozymandias". While I like it, and it's fun to read aloud, I think it's too heady for ten-year-olds. They just don't know what to make of it.

Thirteen Ways

I
Less than a day's drive
from the Sierra Nevada
sits the city of San Francisco.

II
Water has three states,
a secular trinity
that provides life.

III
The autumn winds pull the fog
through the Golden Gate.

IV
Hydrogen and oxygen
are one.
Liquid and ice and vapor
are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
the beauty of thirst
or the beauty of slaking it.
Lifting the full glass
or emptying it.

VI
Icicles filled the picture
above December's grid,
those barbaric teeth
of old man winter,
or are they instead
translucent carrots
growing in the sky?

VII
Oh bachelors of the city
surrounded by golden-skinned birds,
do you watch them as they sip
so delicately their vitamin waters
after their runs along the bay?

VIII
I know the taste
of accented water-
the teas and coffees
and their rhythms
of afternoon and morning.

IX
As the fog burned off,
its disappearing edge
was natural magic.

X
At the sight of the marine layer,
giving everything a gray hue,
even the purples of pigeons
were a welcome flash of color.

XI
He walked across the bride,
stopping to look out at Alcatraz
-no glass cage for him-
and the fear
of too much freedom
and too much restraint
was the fog's shadow on him.

XII
The sixteen rivers are moving.
The bay must be alive.

XIII
In the morning, the family left the city
for afternoon snow-
it was going to snow
they said on the news-
to watch the evergreens turn white.

/ / /

This is a poem I originally wrote in April 2010 for Poetic Asides. I don't think I've posted it before. (I couldn't find it on this blog, even using a search.) I did revise a couple of the stanzas, but otherwise, it is as I originally wrote it.

I submit it in response to the Thirteen Ways of Looking prompt at We Write Poems. This is an idea I've used before. I learned it from Susan Sibbet, a poet who comes to my school from California Poets in the Schools. But I'm glad that Margo suggested it for all of us.

A Francisco San School Day

It was one of those days.
You know what I'm talking about.
There was the tremor in the morning
that left everyone unsettled.
No plaster cracked or fell from the walls,
but we all still shuddered inside
sporadically throughout the day.

Actually, it started before that
when I forgot the words to the pledge
of allegiance, as if I was that no man
who is an island, bound to none.
Another teacher gave me the glare
that said I was being seditious,
but it was my brain in rebellion
against me, not my heart.

And then walking up the stairs
to the classroom, it was as if the tread
of my shoe was gone, every step
was wrong, the wetness of the morning fog
now squeaking off loudly on the stairs,
my foot slipping so I almost fell,
and then giving a flat tire
to the little fourth-grade girl
struggling up the stairs in front of me.

After the tremor, they were timid.
Afraid to ask questions, to take smart risks,
as if the stigma of the label of special education
had been stamped on them all.
They weren't themselves, as if their nether selves
had crawled up and thrown their sacred selves down.

I didn't teach a single thing that day.
I swear everything I did only hindered
their progress rather than aiding it.
My lesson plans weren't on my clipboard.
I couldn't find the copies I'd made
the previous day. The teacher's edition
wasn't on the shelf of my podium.
My every effort only enmeshed my students
in a net of incompetence and ignorance.
By the end of the day, we were a tuft,
a dense clump, of humanity.

I dismissed them at two,
and sat alone in my classroom until three
dismissing myself.

/ / /

For this poem, I combined two prompts, Wordle 17 from The Sunday Whirl, and a prompt from Poetic Asides to write an "everything is against you" poem. Thanks to Brenda and Robert.

The Banker

it's easy to see desperation
in the eyes of a stranger

not so easy to turn your heart
to granite and slouch by,
but you've managed it

you spin your stories
how they've wasted their lives,
that they've cracked their minds
on drugs, cheapened their bodies

you concern yourself
with how dirty they are,
not ash on their skins
but the oily residue
of urban life

if only they were clean
you tell yourself

but the truth is
you are afraid
afraid that they will screw you
as you've screwed them

you fear the revolution
that they'll rise
and throw you to the ground
from the corporate parapets
you think protect you

but when the revolution of your soul comes
when all worldly concerns are cleansed
you will not find yourself
in the presence of light

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 18 at The Sunday Whirl.

My body is a school.

My body is a school.

The principal and teachers are meeting
in the faculty room of my brain.
They are discussing the best ways
to improve their students' faculties.

My eyes are a vision
of a brighter future,
but right now it's raining
and the visibility's not so good.

My ears have the capacity
of an auditorium,
for questions, music,
problems, poems,
and confidences kept safe.

My shirt is brightly colored,
a primary color with short sleeves.
There are no tricks up my sleeves,
just grease on my elbow,
and copier toner under my fingernails.

I have a full, satisfied feeling
in my cafeteria stomach.

There are students running
through my intestinal hallways.
It tickles, stirring up serotonin.

My hands are empty.
There are no more supplies
to carry upstairs
from the supply room.
But they are open,
full of compassion and giving.
They are ready to reach out
and help someone up.

One foot is stuck in the mud
of public apathy,
while the other is unstable
on the shifting sands
of governmental mismanagement.
My balance is good
and my legs are strong.
I've had lots of practice
traversing this land.
And somehow
I keep moving forward.

/ / /

This poem is in response to a prompt from Poetic Asides to write a school poem.

Elementary School Poetry 180 - Week One

It was way too crazy a week ago for me to post the poems I was going to read. Instead, on Mondays I will be posting the poems I read the previous week to my students. In fact, I didn't get to reading any poems aloud until the fourth day, when I read four in a row.

• I started with "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins.
• "The Tyger" by William Blake.
• "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll.
• "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams.
• "Lines" by Martha Collins

In the spirit of "Introduction to Poetry", we just "walk inside the poem's room". Students are welcome to comment, if they like, but I ask no questions of them. There is no analysis. That may come later - and as a separate activity. I am going to try poems with VTS, Visual Thinking Strategies, this year. I think "The Tyger" might be an interesting one to try later in the year.

"Jabberwocky" was a poem some students had heard or read before. All the others were new to them. We did comment on the made up words in the Lewis Carroll poem. And a student did mention how "This Is Just to Say" was a poem of apology.

Track Meet

The boy hurtles himself into the air,
his limbs outstretched over the hurdles,
which he clears without injury or slowing down,
reaching for that finish line, its siren call
never fading, only growing stronger.

He never turned his gaze towards the others.
It was not close, no toss-up who won.
It was as if he flew the entire distance.
This was a first victory for him,
and as he flashed that fresh, winning smile,
he was glad he flossed after breakfast,
no flecks of cereal between his teeth.

/ / /

I finally finished this poem in response to Wordle 11 at The Sunday Whirl.

I'm only three weeks late. It's not a great poem. Frankly, "It was as if he flew the entire distance" is probably the most cliche line I've ever posted, but my self-imposed challenge of writing a poem to all of Brenda's wordles is intact.

Open

you have to open the curtains,
their edges touching the bookcase
with the gilded leather covers
standing at attention, waiting,
their wisdom rendered from life,
and blink for a moment
at the light scattered by the clouds,
cast your scattered thoughts aside,
let the whir of your mind cease,
do not scan for the plot twist,
just marvel at the natural world,
where nothing is reprehensible

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 14 at The Sunday Whirl.

Void

the divine spirit walked
onto the celestial balcony
to observe humanity,
their rhythmic jostles,
as they ignored the ominous
and fell prey to illusions,
flapping about in search of meaning,
a pantomime of the real,
fearful of the day
they'd be but bones
beneath the emerald lawns,
worried about the void
between earth and heaven
and not seeing the void
between each other

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 13 at The Sunday Whirl.

Poem

Logic is just one river
that empties into the Sea of Thought.

It flows, a path of nature,
as true as the river of Instinct
and much more so than Emotion,
that twisted tributary
feeding into Whim,
as so many others do,
and drink from as well.

But Logic is clear and cool,
not muddied like Fantasy
by all the unicorns and centaurs
galloping along its banks,
a world all its own
and yet just part of ours.

And Logic flows calmly,
no buzz of mosquitoes
in your ears
from stagnant ponds
looking for blood.

I don't understand
why some resist,
just refusing to drink
from this wondrous river.

Or why those who do drink
are not quenched of their thirst.
Maybe it's the lack of taste.

Then my eyes fluttered open,
and I realized I'd been floating down Dream.

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 12 at The Sunday Whirl.

I have failed utterly (so far) to write a poem to Wordle 11, which is part of the delay in getting this one posted.

The Waves

The Waves

It's great to move.
I never tire of it.
And to rush up
and throw yourself
onto the coarse sand,
delightful.

And the slide back,
merging with my brothers,
that divine touch
I always feel.
That swirling and tumbling,
watching the air bubbles rise.
They tickle.

Then we gather
together again
to wash over
the sandcastles.
to pull the sand down,
tumbling each grain
a little more smooth.
They want to be round
like the Earth.
So we do
the best we can.

And we free our brothers
trapped in the moats.
I hate being there.
We rush back home,
laughing.

High tide,
low tide,
it doesn't matter.
There's always
something fun
to do.
When you're
not tied down.


"According to the waves"

According to the waves
sand castles are not allowed to stand.

They come rushing up
teasing
then falling back
whispering as they go
maybe next time.

And come back they do.
Sometimes near, sometimes far.
They gather strength
to strike again
but are undermined
by their brothers
rushing back to the sea.

Always  uphill,
the climb up the beach,
then the slide back,
tumbling rocks and broken shells.
But eventually
they make it all the way.
They pour over the walls,
overflow the moats,
and bring the sand castles
down, dragging them seaward,
smoothing rough human
edges away.

Sand castles,
according to the waves,
are not allowed
to stand.

So much better
to run uphill
and then slide home.

/ / /

"The Waves" was written in response to two prompts from We Write Poems: I hear voices and Revisionists unite. "According to the waves" is the poem I decided to revise, from last year's Poem-a-Day Challenge in April, but I was stuck on how to approach it. I still think it needs work, but decided to write a new poem from the perspective of the waves themselves.