4/30 Based on a 10 minute free write

This is why gargoyles hate the cooing of pigeons

Shit
is so often preceded by cooing.
Birds
have no excuse to perch
because they
have wings.

But even
Pheidippides
is said to have died
after running 26.2 miles.
Sometimes
it's not the fact that we can fly
but that we're too tired to try
that seems so depressing.

Taking a break
is not an act of treason
against the light you've been given.

Asking for help
is not punishable by hemlock,
so stop acting like
you're going to die
if someone notices how tired you are.

Sometimes
the best way to get back on your feet
is to admit that you've fallen.

Sometimes, birds
get scared too.

A Surprise Treat Awaits You

I have been a little behind on the blog/poem posts... So today is a catch up day!
This piece is based off of a wonderful workshop where we wrote based on a Snapple Cap fact, a fortune cookie's fortune, and a tea packet's wisdom. This one came from a fortune cookie.
Note: This does deal with issues I have faced, and sometimes, yes, I do still feel sad/angry/depressed about it, but I believe it's better to write out your frustrations in order to help get rid of them. Catharsis is a wonderful thing.

A surprise treat awaits you --

I am a comfort zone zombie.
I am a specter of everything I currently understand.
I am a tombstone afraid to know its own inscription.

When your clinically depressed students tell you
that you need to stop looking so ghost
that your scarecrow stance is
making them weary of becoming an adult,
then you know
it might be time to listen
and stop telling yourself
that you're not worth your own wrist watch anymore.

I want to believe the fortune cookie's message;
I want to listen, but I've been scared to break bread
ever since diabetes claimed a piece of my identity at 10 --
dinner is a death row final meal;
breakfast is Socrates' punishment;
lunch is a poison,
and a savior.

Maybe I haven't been comfortable with Christianity
ever since I understood
that every diabetic blood test
is less sacrament
and more sacrilege to Jesus' promise --
my fingertips are lamb sacrifice --
I bleed to know how healthy I am;
my disease is a daily flirt with suicide
because knives that cut steak
are far too similar
to the knives that cut wrists;

weight that no one can see you carry
is the heaviest.

I'm trying --
I'm trying --
I'm trying to feel normal
to trying to touch tomorrow;
to let go of yesterday;
to move past
but moments can feel lead
and sometimes I don't feel strong enough
to lift this tombstone inscription
of everything I haven't become.

Elegy in E Harmonic Minor

In 1880, Tchaikovsky composed the Overture of 1812.
It is a composition made famous
by the fact that it uses canon fire to act as instrumentation.
It's played every July 4th here in America,
but if you listen closely
you can hear canon fire covers
in distant deserts;
you can hear sons turn their bodies into crescendos;
cast their xylophone bones into a chorus of shattered silence.
The Middle East may not know western music,
but that's only because they only hear its dissonance
never its resolution
because an accord reached at the end of World War II
diminished holy land held by Palestine
and augmented land exiled from
into a land returned to.

If bodies are temples,
then every suicide bomb bent
on spreading holy organ chords
is just another form of graffiti
that tags blood over open doorways
to tell those around:
Pass over this place.

The trouble with holy land
is that it's only holy
because so many martyrs have buried their beat underneath it.

And somewhere a Palestine father prays
that his son will never elegy himself into an explosion.
Somewhere, a Palestine mother prays
that he child will grow instrument limbs,
that her child will have A sharp lungs and B flat feet
so that hate can't conscript him into its sepulcher.

And somewhere in America, a politician prays that the public
won't listen long enough to remember
that it was we who swung these scales in the first place;
it was we who thought democracy
would sing the right key.

We are not the correct composers
because we still think that the Overture of 1812
with its explosive instrumentation
commemorates us.

It doesn't.

That overture found its voice in 1880
to celebrate a Russian victory,
and that's ironic because the CIA taught a battle hymn of hatred
to Afghanistan when Russia invaded 100 years later.
That hymn still echoes with IEDs rather than canons.

The trouble with never having war on home soil
is we don't have a reason to cease
because we've never had to reap
crops sewn by the flesh of the dead.

We haven't had to hear dissonance's dirge,
and the only coverage our soldiers get
is flags covering their coffins.

I don't know
when our anthem became
the sound of a nation collectively covering its ears,
but there are still measures left.

This song isn't over.

And I don't want anyone
to fear their son becoming
an explosion.


This piece is based off a quote I heard on NPR spoken by a Palestinian man:
"I don't want my son to become a suicide bomber.
I want my son to live.
I want my son to become a musician."

Poetry Dare: Day 12

Poetry needs to be brutally honest sometimes because it's our story.  It is the one that we tell, and honesty needs to be preserved in our stories, or else the stories no long have meaning.  I think a lot.  I think far too much, and, even worse, I think I'm right.  This poem comes from a free write (more like a free speak using a voice memo recorder and a phone), and I'm half tempted not to post it because I don't know what it means. It just feels a shame when I write a poem, and I don't even understand it.  This, however, is the way that poetry works.  My hope, then, is that someone finds something useful out of reading this poem.  Just remember not to ask too many questions because I'm not even sure I have the answers.



We stood out in the parking lot
underneath stars that must have blinked a million times.
Perhaps they were trying to say good night, to
bid us adieu, wait
until we could see them again, but
we wouldn't listen.

You told me about how wrong I was
throughout that entire night. I
didn't want to believe you.
In those moments with the stars
above blinking, I felt
my soul as old as time. Older
than the stars that shine above. I felt
like my soul had seen
countless wars
through the eons and past time to
before it could form these words.

And you wanted to tell me
that people can change.

I don't
understand
how anyone
can see the signs
but still be so blind.

My mother
told me that I was her rock.
She insisted
that I was strong, sturdy, would
not be broken, possibly eroded, but
this
is what happens to all good men.
They slowly and subtly change throughout
their lives.

I feel more like water.
Trying to find my way
around any situation, pour
past any tough surface, but
I've neglected my own.

I don't understand how
you
call me beautiful and still
have an honest smile.

I don't know if I'll ever
understand
where you're coming from.

I don't even know what
the point of these words are
because the last thing I said to you was
"Words
have no meaning anymore."

And I truly wanted to believe that.

Because words can't
tell me how to feel
right now. They can't
sympathize
with the tears my eyes
are shedding; they can't
hold me tight and tell me
everything's gonna be okay.

But you can't either.

I'm afraid the words I've placed in front of us
have grown rough and solid like stones. And I
like water
have been rushing up against them
trying to get through
to the other side.

Poetry Dare: Day 10

I'm still not sure where certain poems come from.  I also think that I'd like to start doing themed weeks later on in this process so that I'm not just writing poems and not really expanding my craft.  I may do an all revision week (which will feature either poems from this process or poems I just really want to revise but haven't gotten a chance to work with) or an all one topic week (basically write about 1 theme for an entire week to see the differences which emerge).  Anyhow, that's all sort of off topic because I know you (yes, you) came here for poetry rather than to hear some mindless meandering nonsense.



And I want my students to understand
how everything is connected.
I want to tell them that
getting these connections will
help them to get their minds into the way
the world works. I want
to tell them to see how
vested interests connect
to the status quo, how
emotions connect with their fists, but
only if they're being used improperly.
I want to show them how their legs
connect with the sky
when the same legs hold
backs uncracked, hold
spine aligned, hold
head up high. I
want them to connect love
with respect rather
than bragging or
bank accounts. I need them to see
lies sometimes connect to truth but only
until we ask enough questions
to see why and how those lies
trace through the tapestries
of our history. I want
them to feel how pen
connects to page connects
to story connects to
reason for being connects
to why and I and am, that
writing your story is the greatest
gift you can give yourself because
no one else will or
they'll misinterpret your meaning, and
there is no greater sadness than
when you
are connected
to things you didn't do like
too many of them are
connected to laziness or
lack luster drive or
apathy, but these are untruths
connected to lies connected
to commonly accepted conceptions, and
this is not the story
they have to live with, this
is only truth if they accept it; this
is only them if they keep the flaws
connected without a further fight.
I want them to connect failure
with accepting someone else's
definitions
as their own.

Poetry Dare: Day 9

This poetry dare thing has been an interesting experience for sure.  Sometimes, I find myself wondering what in the world I'm going to write about whereas other times I simply don't have a problem at all.  If nothing else, this has given me an incredible amount of practice, and it has made some of my work more efficient.  For example, today's poem hits not one, not two, but three separate reasons for writing a poem: a poetry club prompt, the prompt I posted yesterday (which can be found here), and my daily poetry dare requirement.  I'd like to then conclude that this poem has the power of three poems in one, but I'll leave that to others to decide.



I have a sickness
called
heartache. Its
symptoms include sleep,
silence, food but not for sustenance, only
because I want my guts to feel less
than empty, and isolation like
alone is the one word which
understands how my heart, with
its veins like red wires,
can feel so taut and tired.

I have a sickness
called
heartache. It is
a difficult disease to manage and,
sometimes, I fall for miracles cures like
I fall for women who offer the warmth
of their bed instead of the heat of their heart. I
find myself trying fads like diets, trying
to eat my heart out like change could come
packaged and wrapped, but calories can't
create change unless they
are put to use after their ingestion; I'm
open to suggestions for how to help
manage this sickness because
it may never go away, but I've got
to find a way to live life with survival
as an understood aspect and not
the only goal.

I have a sickness
called heartache; it
takes too much away; I've
discovered
a way
to fight back
with my feet and
movement. When
travelling in a vehicle, we
inherit the same speed
that the craft around us is moving. When
flying through the skies, our
heads are in the clouds, and we
can feel distance like looking
at the earth with the eyes of clouds
allows us to understand how small every
body is; how small each heart
contained within its skin
is.

This
sickness
called heartache is
best fought with the perspective
of movement, with
feet pushing against asphalt, with
muscles set in motion to
change direction, to set a rhythm, to
move veins with the inherited speed of my feet,
to pull my pulse, to breathe deeply, to
wick away sweat like anger could be poured out and
evaporate along with loneliness. This
is the cure I've come up with for heartache:
run.

Run, not away from these problems but
towards a solution; my heart may ache, yet
I don't want it to be because I slept or
spent too much time underneath the covers
of silence. I wake to make my heart
run.

Poetry Dare: Day 8

Trying to find subjects to write about can be very difficult.  This is especially so when you're writing a new piece every day.  I may just begin writing about the exact same thing each week and see how my view on it changes with each poem.  Anyhow, in times like this, one may find it extremely helpful to have a person to offer suggestions on topics.  I have such a person, and she offered up today's topic: Jealousy.



I've never been comfortable with the way
jealousy leave my throat sore. It's
a burned tongue from drinking hot
chocolate before it has had a chance to cool.
Jealousy is a word that will not wait to cool.
It's a word that wants action - one which cries
out for it as though anger were an answer
worth using rather than a last resort. The worst
part about jealousy, though, is that it too often
comes disguised as other things like
another man's hand on your back or
the fact that I want to protect her even
though I know she's
perfectly
capable of protecting herself. Jealousy
tries to pass itself off as chivalry; I'm
trying to pass myself off as chivalrous
when I step in to make him leave his hands
by his side, but I'm
just guilty of letting my blood burn
and drinking this bitter emotion
before it's had a chance
to cool.

Poetry Dare: Day 7

Poetry is a very strange art.  I'm honestly not sure where most of it comes from.  This is certainly true of the piece which I got today.



You can choose when to leave but please
don't decide as though all
other options have no role - one
is the loneliest number, and time
never feels like it's on our side,
but that shouldn't matter - time has
no master, no absolute reason; it just
is. Like you just are. You are
what you choose to be, and
you can choose when to leave but please
don't decide right now - you are
like time; you're ever changing and
a piece of you exists outside of understanding; you
are a character drawn in
greater detail than a graph with
more than one y
intercepting perceptions as they cross
across your plane existence, you you
are not plain - you just are like
time is: a space for existence,
a force for action that
can't be taken back, and broken
things can't always be made whole; how-
ever, you've got to take comfort in that
pieces have potential because they
connect to new things in interesting ways.

Plants kept from the sun will bend toward light, let
yourself soak up sun - grow up under the shining sol;
surround yourself in others whose brightness
rivals your own - the
only reason darkness is so pervasive is
that we're afraid of the light of truth and
keep our broken pieces unfairly stuffed
in drawers or the backs of closets like
light is an addiction which we
need to quit cold turkey or have
a sponsor anytime we have the urge to smile; I
don't want to hide my light, and I'm sick of
solely apologizing for my flaws, so
embrace me. Make me whole for a moment more, and I
can hold your hands like our arms are
meant to intercept to make our y's
have no meaning anymore like these questions
no longer matter like we've grown away
from our shadows and left
them behind; I
am pieces
looking for peace; it's
not time to go, so
don't.

You can choose to leave but please
don't.
Don't go until you're called by light like
a sweet creak of your home's front door opening
after a long,
too long,
day.

Poetry Dare: Day 6

I will be the first to admit that I do not always write good poetry, but I think it's enough to know that I have tried.

So, I dance.  I swing dance, specifically.  Swing dancing is a social event where the dancing isn't indicative of attraction or the like, but it does happen sometimes that attraction will develop between partners - if not attraction then at least interest.  This puts someone like me in a strange position.  Do I ask her if she'd be interested in hanging out sometime, or do I just keep my mouth shut and enjoy the connection we already have?  There is almost nothing more awkward then dancing with someone whom you've refused to give your number to.  This awkwardness is the subject of Poetry Dare: Day 6's poem.



You asked me to dance. I
said yes because your eyes
smiled almost as brightly
as your hands which held mine like
light stayed in particle form, and
you wore it like a glove. You
have this way of letting out a
slight sigh when we dance like
you're mourning the fact that
the moment which just passed
can't be captured for more
than just a beat or two.
I admit that there are certain
dances I don't want to end
 like it's saying goodbye to a friend,
wondering when the chance will come again,
and after a year of music and
moving my feet to the beat, I
understand the value of finding
a connection like that, but
I find myself asking one question
with wonder and a bit of trepidation:
if I asked for your number,
would you stop dancing with me?

Poetry Dare: Day 5

I had this idea for a poem in mind for awhile, and I finally had a chance to write it out.  I'm very interested in the habits we humans have in life.  One of those habits is nearly undying curiosity.  I think, sometimes, however, that this curiosity gets us into more trouble than it does to help us. This is problematic because we can never know with certainty what could have been if something had been different, and sometimes the word "if" is the worst word that can or could ever be.



If is the heaviest word in
the English language. There
is no way to whisper this
word under your breath without
finding an inundation of
emotions or memories or
colors connected like rainbows
are said to show the way
to a pot of gold.
But this word is not
heavy like change - it is
burdened by moments
that never came to be,
possibilities conditioned on
things out of your control.

Certainty is something that can't
be guaranteed, and if is too
often followed by then as though
the hypothetical could lead into
a consequence...
"If I had been there..."
"If I had done something..."
"If I had said anything, then..."
Then... then...
Then what?

The unknown takes over and
life never goes back, so please
just keep your eyes turned
towards the place to which your
toes point. Feet know that
certain ends can't be questioned - this
is why feet look like exclamation points and toes
can't curl into question marks -
forward is the best way feet embark.

If is the heaviest utterance in
the English language. It has a habit
of transforming those things which touch it
into unanswerable questions like "What if?" It
has this habit of transforming memories
into missed opportunities, and ifs
stick to themselves until we feel
buried by "whats" and "I don't knows"
are the only weapon we have to wield, but they
break like bones under plunging gravity -
falling doesn't crush us; the sudden stop
does.

Poetry Dare: Day 4

It was a good day. Movies and hanging out with friends. Somehow destiny got brought up.



And we become
what we've always been.

Truth is that chance
has little to do with where we end.

Actions speak louder than words
because voices too often go unheard.

whereas eyes acknowledge what
they've been told to see, so

destiny lies not with finding,
falling upon, or going into but

can only be because
we become what we do.

Poetry Dare: Day 3

I have absolutely no idea where this poem came from.  It began from the first two stanzas and then just kind of took on a life of its own.  I think that poetry is a state of constantly questioning the world.  The answers we get may not necessarily be the ones we want to find, but it's important that we keep questioning nonetheless.  Writing allows me that outlet, and I would encourage anyone feeling at a loss for words to pick up a pen or pencil and tell your story straight onto the lines in front of you.  After all, lines won't judge and your story is beautiful... And this rant reminds me of a poem of mine that a friend really likes, so I'd be quite lax in not including a link to that poem here.

A big thank you to anyone who has been checking out my dare/blog, and a big thank you to the person who made the dare in the first place, even if it was for the selfish reason of hearing a new poem of mine every day =D.  Consider this me saying "You're welcome."

But seriously, thank you to everyone for your support!




You've written another language for your story, drawn
a map but forgot the key.
I'm just trying to understand, so please
help me.

What does the sunset mean to you? Where
has the sunrise fallen? What
do you wake up to? Why
is your life calling?

Before you can answer who, you
have to find a reason to be. Sometimes
somethings get lost, but these answers
are too important to lose, so

don't loosen your grip. Who
are you? Where
do you want to be?
What makes you so
special? Why are you with me?

Questions, rather than answers, are
the way in which we explore the world because
answers are an end but questions are the means, so
forgive me for asking so many, but
I've got a wanderlust which feels
unquenchable.

I want to explore your eyes like they
lead me to the fountain of youth; I could
think of my fingertips as children running
through your hair like fields - there is
no end to the exploring and the adventures
on which we could embark; I'm
not even sure I'm asking for answers
anymore, but if you have some
you're willing to offer, I'd
be happy to sit and listen like
ancient mariners would stare
into the sky for guiding stars while
listening to the power of the ocean
as she gently whispered
against the sides of their craft
like the way your breath
washes across my chest.

Poetry Dare: Day 2

Today, I was thinking about the prompt that I posted on Monday.  The prompt can be found here.  In short, the prompt asks about freedom and what you think it is.  I'm still not completely sure.  For me, freedom is a tenuous idea.  I don't think there's any way to completely get 100% behind freedom all the time.  If such were the case, we'd move towards anarchy rather than the governance we have.  I think, while some may find this idea interesting, I do not.  I do not like the idea of total freedom...  Unless that freedom is bounded by some kind of responsibility.  This is where I run into a problem with current gun legislation and possible change.  It's as though we don't want to take responsibility for the actions these weapons allow people to commit.  I would love to see common sense legislation about guns, but I'm not sure it's going to happen...  If absolutely nothing else, I'd very much like to see responsible gun owners take a stand and agree that no one but the military really needs to have assault weapons.  I know that bad people exist, and I am all for being able to effectively defend oneself (this is why I study martial arts still), but there is a difference between self defense and making murder far too easy to commit.  I do not know all the facts, but I feel as though something needs to change otherwise we are simply living insane.

Anyhow, onto the poem:

What is the nature of freedom? I
am privy to the calls of coyotes at late night
moon serenades. Birds call their song in flight;
we take caps off bottles and
only dial numbers when we're drunk enough
to forget that we have the freedom to
raise our voice whenever we want. But
something has a bad habit of getting lost; freedom
isn't free from what they've told me, but we
are paying everything we shouldn't be in order to keep
this ideal alive. Please,
tell me why your right
to bear arms trumps
30,000 people's right to life. Please,
tell me why you're right, and
everyone else is wrong. I'm sick
of hearing dirges and conflating them
with liberty's song.

We have lost the right to casually walk
through airports, arenas, capitols, and transportation
stations unmolested by probing question attached to
gloved hands, so why must weapons remain
so easily obtained? Freedom is not attained through force.
Freedom cannot be guaranteed by bullets or anything
material - free may only be forged from the non-
quantifiable. You may have a fist full for a heart,
but it's spirit that
can't be chained, and
bullets will never be able to kill all the world's
words are the way we have to fight
injustice because men can die, but their ideals
live on. So, please,
tell me how your
bullets are enough to quell an uprising
of the spirit - it's like trying to
fire at clouds to stop them from raining -
freedom is an idea too big for bullets to bring down;
it is an ideal that only words
are big enough
to protect.



This is a piece which I would be interested in working with to see if I can get it any stronger or give more weight to some of the ideas.  I think an integral part to any craft is the ability to find both flaws and strengths in the art and diminish the former while increasing the latter - the key is to not focus too much on the flaws and realize that nothing is perfect, but flaws make something relate able.  Regardless of that, I think we need to have an open and honest discussion about many things in our society ranging from guns to mental health to the violence in our entertainment.  There is always a solution, and if art mimics life, then life must also have flaws and strengths.  We just need to diminish the former and increase the latter.  Maybe someday we'll get this thing right.

Poetry Dare: Day 1

Before I begin the poem, I wanted to say that I had an absolutely awesome day.  Very interesting to say the least with quite exciting extra-curricular activities such as hearing an amazing set of poetry from Dominique Christine, a recent Women of the World Poetry Slam champion.  She is an amazing speaker, and she definitely geeked out with a ridiculously awesome tangent about etymology and the meaning of words.  I don't think the following is directly inspired by her set, but someday I hope to have a couple pieces flowing from the great poetry which was shared.

Now onto the poem... piece... thing which was produced:
(As yet untitled - I tend to keep work untitled until its worth doing the mental gymnastics to actually come up with a name for the work).

Some people think poetry needs to be clothed in pain
as though words could take the hurt, act
like a bandaid, cover up scars, and I'm
here to tell you, yes, this is possible, but
don't let words be your only salve. If they aren't
enough, take action and use your limbs to write
what your hands can't. Hold
yourself up on sturdy legs and stand
for something greater when the pen isn't enough.
Words have a limit to their application - they
won't feed you when you're hungry; they
won't clothe you when you're naked, but they can
make your realize how hungry you've been and
tell you what may have gone missing - they, the words,
can make you comfortable with your own nakedness and
expose your flaws as the raiment of divinity.
Your words can connect you, but
only if you allow them to.
Hands can hold just as much as they
can strangle, so
be careful with what you say as
poetry doesn't need to come dressed in the rags
of your past nor the mask of your fears.

Some people think that, in order for the pen to be
as powerful as the sword, it needs to make
someone bleed, but
poetry should not be forced into fighting
unless this is what it needs to do.
Sadness doesn't need to permeate your stanzas,
but it's okay
if it does.

You may not have known the kind of dark
that other poets do, but that doesn't mean
you should apologize for trying to make light
of the life you've seen, and you don't need to go
searching for dark to understand it. You've
already pulled all nighters to watch the sun
come up, sat on a roof and hugged your knees
in place of a warm body, felt loss like it
can't be explained, and you don't need to explain
yourself because these lines will not judge.
Just like no explanation is needed to see
the beauty of a sunrise in weary eyes, you
do not need
to apologize for yourself because you
are your words; you
are poetry. You
are never finished, yet
you are a complete sentence. A subject
constantly in search of lively verbs
and their
compliments.

December 17th - Prompt: Location, Location, Location

Today's prompt is one that I love, and it is one that can be a TON of fun to work with so long as you have the right place.  It's all about the location.

Write a poem about a place.

That's it.  Nothing more. Nothing less.  The trick, however, is to write your poem in a way that means something to you, that is interesting and eye-catching (or ear catching), and that other people can relate to.  You could write your poem speaking from a different point of view (perhaps a tree or landmark in the location you're writing about) or a letter which personifies the place to which you're writing.  This place can be anything: that one nice, quiet park bench, the restaurant you frequent, or even the city in which you live.

If you're stuck on ideas, feel free to check out this video of a poem inspired by this prompt; it's all about the Quad Cities along the Mississippi river on the Iowa/Illinois border:

Have fun and happy writing!

Thankful

I am thankful for so many things it's difficult to know where to start.
So I suppose I'll begin from the ground up.

I'm thankful for my legs which learned
the value of standing strong, knees bent over
toes turned straight forward. My legs keep me grounded; they
know how to kick like Chuck Norris, and they're balanced
from years of walking, kicking, and standing in the right direction.

I'm thankful for my hips which sway
for the grace of songs. Hips are the centered energy
points of power, and the place from which gravity stems.
They communicate with intimate others, keep my legs aligned,
and keep a contact point between the ground and my stomach.

I'm thankful for my stomach which has kept
digesting even though other parts of my system shut down.
Somewhere along the line, my stomach lets me move because
the sun still shines. I've digested so much light
over the years that clouds hardly have a say anymore.

I'm thankful for my heart who's been giving me a meter for 26 years. Blood
runs 60,000 miles a day, and my heart takes center stage; it's
neither vain nor selfish but beats out of love - the lungs
can be told to slow, but the heart knows its way enough to run forever.

I'm thankful for my hands. They
know when to clench into fists, when to stay open, when to hold -
palms up toward the sky - they know when to catch rain or cover -
they are my connection, and they are never empty, they hold my
story, and they help me tell it.

I'm thankful for my shoulders which are broad,
large enough to bear the world, but
have a tendency to stay tight and unrelaxed,
unsure when I'll call on them again in order to keep
the world centered.

I'm thankful for my mouth which makes shapes and,
aside from my hands, is the only part of me able
to make the sign for love. It's a sign my lips may not
wear often, but the value of something so rare is incalculable

I'm thankful for my head which senses most of the world,
converts nouns into ideas, and connects everything to itself.
This is the place that the pen goes to refill itself; this
is the place that I go in order to say I love you; this
is the place that regulates the heart, and this is the place that knows
most of this poem was found in the pages of someone else, so
I'm thankful for so much - almost too much to count - from everyone
around willing to share their hands, hearts, legs, brains, and space.

Without you, this would be a thought without a mouth, a pen minus
a page, and a poem
falling on deaf ears.

November 5th Prompt - It's Your Past

November is considered a time during which we should be thankful. I agree that we ought to be thankful, but I would add on that we ought to also think about where we've been before, take stock, and acknowledge how far we've come. For this reason, I present the prompt for this week:

Write to yourself in the past.

Are there any things you would like to tell yourself in the past? Would you like to thank yourself? Would you like to forgive yourself? Is there something you now understand that, when younger, you simply could not comprehend? Your writing can take the form of advice, of venting, of understanding, of forgiveness, of thankfulness, or anything else that you'd like to present to your former self. As a slight tweak, you may want to think as though you're writing to someone else; often it's easier to talk to others than it is to talk to ourselves, so if imagining that you are writing to someone else who is like you will assist in this endeavor, then certainly feel free to do that.

Whatever the case, don't stop writing!

Have fun, and good luck writing!

Zombies: A Halloween Slam Poem

Zombies

Through recent years, Zombies have become about as ubiquitous as the imagined apocalypse seems to suggest. They're everywhere like
we've been bitten by some kind of zombie fever. And I recently realized why.

While talking with an acquaintance, I understood that his responses could be replaced by *zombie noise* with barely any difference.
I asked, "How was your day?"
He responded *zombie noise* which I understood as, "Good, you?"
To which I replied *zombie noise* which he took to mean, "About the same."
And so out zombified conversation went on until it came time to part ways.
We shook hands, said our goodbyes, and each shuffled away.
Yet my revelation did not end with the zombification of conversation.

I traveled home to watch TV and see news stories moan about how our economy is in shambles;
the apocalypse, it seems, is walking far slower these days.
Yet this vision is not what made me think we've got a zombie problem on our cold hands.
A few hours later, I turned on to tune in again only to find a commercial claiming that I'm missing
something.
The television blared a horde of images which transfixed me in place for some moments, and I heard *intense zombie noise* creep its way into my room which I
understood as, "Don't you wish you had a big screen TV?
After all, your stomach may be empty, your heart may be slow,
your brain my be tired, but you'll always know
you've got 60 inches or 5 feet through which you can watch the world just
waste
by."

The jingle was disheartening and it gave me a stroke
of insight as my eyes flooded wide, and I
realized zombies are popular because they're as close as the nearest mirror.
I decided that day to take my reflection back.

First, I'm cutting zombification from my conversation.
Of course, unsolicited life stories are about as grave as "good", so instead, I'm choosing epithets like
magnificent,
disheartening,
dilatory, hectic, epicurean, atrocious, absurd, or abhorrent to describe my day in ways that tax my brain.

Second, I've decided to heave my heart into my mouth because anything that doesn't stain my teeth with the pulse of truth
is barely worth the breath to sigh, so if I say [improvise!],
you can bet that somewhere deep in my chest,
my heart is echoing those same syllables beat for beat!

And lastly, if there's even a meager chance that, after death, my body will be reanimated to roam the streets and mindlessly consume,
then that's sure as hell the last thing I'll do while I'm still alive!

So, I implore you to join me;
join me in walking like a zombie only if it's on purpose,
speak the truth
even if blood stains your teeth, and
light up this night by holding your pen like it's a torch
bright enough to put sunspots into a blind man's eyes!

Join me; join me this night that way we may
move the living
and raise the dead!

October 29th - Prompt: Face Your Fear

Everyone is afraid of something.  More often than not, we find ourselves afraid of things like the dark, blind corners, and strangers.  This is partially because those things are inherently scary or that we have been warned to stay away from them, but I think it is more likely that we are afraid of these things because they represent the unknown.  What, after all, is hiding in the dark?  What is around the corner?  What is in the heart of a stranger?  This last question is one I want to focus on.

In order to take the fear out of something, we need to understand it.  In order to understand it, we must experience what it is like to be that thing which we fear.  For that reason:

I want you to try writing from the point of view of something you don't understand or something which scares you.

Try writing from the perspective of a spider.  What does it see through its manifold eyes?  What does it feel from the hair on its eight legs?  If spiders scare you not, perhaps the slithering of a snake could give you inspiration to write.  If animals do not scare you, try writing from the perspective of someone or something you do not understand.  If you're a staunch republican, write from the point of view of a democrat, or vice versa.

I recently tried to write from a perspective I didn't completely understand, and I was able to come out with a poem that meant something and informed me more about what I had been previously missing.  With any luck, not only will you discover a new and powerful poem with this prompt, but you'll also be able to find greater understanding where you couldn't before.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Curriculum and Voice

This is my response to October 15th's Prompt (which can be found here).  The issue that I wrote about was the pressure that teachers have with standardized testing going unchecked and, in many ways, running rampant in our system.  Additionally, this poses a large toll not only on teachers but on their students as well. I had a couple of teachers come up to me and tell me that they understood this poem very much.  I am posting a link to the video of it.  Please note that it is somewhat loud, so turn down your speakers a bit!

After the poem, I will outline some of my thoughts for how we can change this.  If you'd like to view more of my poems, please click this to link to my YouTube channel.  If you like what you see, please subscribe!

Curriculum and Voice

0 – [Sign Language] This is the voice we teach our students to use when authority speaks

1 – [Whisper] This is the voice we teach our students to use when whispering with the partner at their elbow

2 – [Quiet Talk] This is the voice we teach our students to use when the unravel the mysteries of their quizzes in small groups

3 – [Normal Voice] This is the voice we teach our students to use when they interact in the classroom

4 – [Outside Voice] This is the voice we teach our students to use outside to manage teams and make plays

5 – [Screaming] This is the voice we teach our students to use when it's an emergency!

Our students have a belief that their voice travels
only as far as their arms because actions speak
louder, and a fist is far more formidable than they've been taught
their voices can be because
we shut them up. Say, “sorry, but
there's no time in our curriculum for your questions”
because finding an answer to “Why
am I the way that I am?” will never be featured on any state sanctioned test.

We don't give them time to digest all the facts but seem somehow surprised
when they throw up the rest. Teachers are taught to teach to the test
because numbers are our only measures of success, and standards
have been removed from a point of high esteem and only seem
to hang above heads like the sword of Damocles. Teachers
are punished when kids can't remember facts they never cared to know.

They are statistics.

And numbers are the only things on which we can count because
the same can't always be said for parents or society – we
are failing our students,
not the other way around.

With drop out rates soaring higher than the system says our kids ever could, we've
waged a war of attrition on our educational institutions but are somehow surprised when our students
only know how to shoot. We
hold them back by becoming the clasped hands of politicians
who've never set foot in a classroom but still make dangerous generalizations
without understanding that their voice and actions reach farther than their arms, so
we should raise our voices to 5; we should scream emergency because
our schools are punctuated by the shrill cry of bells designed to turn
students into workers who slave to the tune of minimum wage.

No, there is still no time in our curriculum for your questions like
Why do dead bugs litter our buildings or
Why are my textbooks older than me or
Why won't my legs move as fast as my dreams or
Why is 5 grades ago the most I can read or
What do these tests actually measure, but
all I can say is we have a system that says your
questions will not fit into our curriculum because
we've got a status quo to keep, and this
consuming society by which we must abide, so
critical thinking is the first to get pushed aside, and I'm

sick and tired of the silence we push upon our students because

5

This is the voice we should be teaching
so our students can see change

can't result solely from the swing of a swift fist but can come

with the power of their words

4

but

3

this is the voice

2

I'm required to teach

1

my students because

0

authority

has spoken.

Writing a poem and speaking it is not enough.  We must also offer solutions.  Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Decrease class sizes

"Sorry, but there's no time in our curriculum for your questions"

Students need personalized attention.  No student learns the same way as another.  The amount of variability in one classroom in terms of learning style is absolutely astounding.  Teachers, while amazing, cannot do it on their own IF the class sizes are too large.  The optimal number is about 20 students per teacher.  In order to decrease class sizes, we need more teachers.  It is plain and simple.  Unfortunately, this would require a lot of money to achieve.

2. Reduce our dependence on standardized testing

"Teachers are punished when kids can't remember facts they never cared to know."

Not every student is a good test taker.  While there are strategies one may employ in order to become a better test taker, it takes time to employ those strategies, explain them, and have the students practice them.  Time is one of the many things that teachers don't have enough of.  

Additionally, the way that No Child Left Behind currently focuses on standardized tests, including its punitive ramifications, are counter-intuitive and disgusting.  By 2014, schools are supposed to have 100% passing grades on their tests.  This means that every student must be proficient or better.  This is an impossible feat to accomplish.  Hercules could not do it.  In addition, if these standards are not met, entire schools can be shut down.  Teachers can be fired.  Granted, I can see where the logic comes from.  But this logic has not shown improvement, and it does not make sense to punish schools that have low test scores in the way that NCLB does.

For those who don't know, NCLB affords schools national government funding.  However, if test scores are not proficient, that funding can be taken away.  One of the best ways to bring scores up is through personalized attention.  As mentioned earlier, this is expensive.  NCLB all but ensures failure. 

Beyond school performance, in 2013, a teacher's evaluation will be based almost 50% on their students' test scores.  As a teacher with whom I worked has said multiple times, "I can't control if my students had a good breakfast, or if their parents struck them the day before - there is just too much variability in students for these tests to be a good measure of learning."

Finally, tests are not actually all that standardized.  States determine what constitutes a test.  In other words, the states determine what should be on the test.  For a time, one state's test didn't even have science on it.  Therefore, that curriculum was pushed to the back burner.  When the test was changed to include science, the school systems had to try to educate their students through a massive deficit.  

"Teachers are taught to teach to the test"

3. Shift our focus to students

"Because finding an answer to 'Why / am I the way that I am?' will never be featured on any state sanctioned test."

Knowledge availability is not like it used to be.  Today, one can find information about almost anything he or she wants to find via the internet (or library if you're 'old school').  Thus, we MUST shift our focus from teaching everything one way and hoping that our students pick it up to teaching to the students.  We MUST shift our focus from "teaching to the test" to "teaching to our students".  In order to do this, we need to make sure that the first item on this list gets taken care of, but we must also strive to engage students more.  Some kids love facts and are aces at memorizing statistics.  Others want to create.  Others want to argue.  Others need to understand how everything works; they must break it down to put it together.  Our curriculum must be free enough to allow this to happen.

The caveat:

In order to fly, you must first be grounded.  In other words, we cannot let students simply go into the world on their own.  While this is a viable method for learning, it is also a slow one.  Students need mentors to help them guide their way through this world.  They need discipline to keep them focused.  They need someone to help them; they need to be encouraged to ask questions, and they need to have the drive instilled in them to actually go find the answer.  We sometimes forget that everything we are was put there by someone else.  Yes, we are ourselves, and we are the only ones who can be that, but we had help finding the materials to make ourselves along the way.  We both build ourselves and are built by others.  It it difficult to find time to encourage questions with so little time in the day and a test that is always looming.

4. Our schools need to be safe places

There is a line that I cut out of my original piece which said

"During a tornado drill, I saw students sit with knees and foreheads pressed against the wall, and I couldn't help but think that this is a little too close to home for some: sitting execution style."

We must not forget that life for students is very different.  It most certainly is a scary time to be alive as a students.  Bomb threats.  Shootings.  Standardized test.  The economy.  There are several different ways to fix these things, but I don't have answers to those.  Unfortunately, the answer to this point hinges on the answers to those questions.  Getting into those answers would turn into a book.

Anyhow, if a student feels unsafe, that student will have a much more difficult time learning.  Every student deserves to have a safe place.  Schools should offer that, but they can't do it on their own.  Our culture needs to examine itself very thoroughly here in order to come up with a comprehensive solution.  And this change WILL NOT come overnight.  We need to be stalwart and demanding.  We have high standards to uphold, after all.

5. We need to empower our youth

"Our students have a belief that their voice travels only as far as their arms"

We need to empower our youth to ask questions and think critically.  If a student can think through a question, he or she will find much more value in the answer than if he or she is told that answer.  This is why the "Socratic method" of teaching is so powerful.  Students learn that questions lead to understanding, and they begin to see their voices as tools for reaching information.  Along with this, we MUST change our tests up to focus less on right or wrong answers.  These kind of questions (true/false, multiple choice) do not engage a student's mind very thoroughly.  Only by asking questions and having students seek out answers (synthesizing knowledge, evaluating, and critiquing) do students come to a better understanding of what they believe.  

Generalizations are dangerous.  They force us to see the world as a binary switch.  Yes or no.  This is not how the world works.  The world is, to use a cliche, grey.  It cannot always be completely quantified.  In order to understand this, students need more time with a teacher who is not buried by grading papers.  One of the best ways to get our students to where we want them to be, contributing members of society, is by giving them personalized attention and time.  Time is worth more than money, but money, right now, is the only thing that we can trade for time.  It's an unfair system, and it needs to be looked at.  Possibly rebuilt, but definitely changed.