Ramblings of a Professor

Foul

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by teachers, language unbearably naked,

dragging their mechanical prose through a 3-point system in hard, wooden chairs while composing in purple ink to confront the boredom,

self-righteous, closet necrophiliacs squirming to expose the morbidity of silence but declining cathartic honesty for abortion, freedom, and gun control,

who wrote about gun control, freedom, and abortion after you forbade them to capture the aestheticism of their first sexual encounter in Chicago at an abandoned car wash,

who stumbled over Shakespearean diction, irony, and the hierarchy of the Norton Anthology while contemplating rap music, the Chicago Cubs, and street jargon,

who possessed god, faith, and deliverance somewhere in their ink before you rearranged three commas, extinguishing the burning transcendental sensation that must have consumed you,

who took notes reluctantly over thesis statements, topic sentences, paragraphs, and other rhetorical, bourgeoise bullshit while dreaming of cigarette smoke scorching a hole in another gerund phrase and misplaced modifier,

who outlined their essays with roman numerals and could not remember if the letters a, b, and c should be capitalized,

who inserted a gyrating, personal introduction only to destroy coherency with the suggestions from you to keep narration and opinion away from a documented, informative paper,

who deleted all adverbs, prepositions, and larded phrases turning their backs on culture, dialect, and colloquialisms,

who ditched conversational tones for the acquisition of scholarly thought, dressing language in a breasted suit, the same white shirt while longing for dirt-grimed jeans, flannel holes, and army boots.

mixed metaphors on marijuana, inspiration, and debauchery; analogies back-firing into complicated ambiguities; complex sentences jumbled with comma splices, danglers, and run-ons–their prose too shallow to capture the river in floods of terse, quick fragments,

who screamed at the thought of original thought only to be rejected–the revelatory insight not supported well with examples,

who spent more time analyzing incorrect sentences than writing them, decomposing another’s language to discover content,

who felt betrayed by exploring meaning through free-writing, scribbling the chaotic mind on whiteness, and finding language emerging from the unconscious,

who refused to read their words aloud, basking in the limelight, the moonlight, but instead summarized their written voice, as if conversation could capture more than the serendipity of an unexplained rhythm,

who write and speak the same spending more time reading The Iliad, Simon and Schuster, or Strunk and White’s Elements of Style than fixating beautiful madness on paper,

who skimmed the first essay, “Angels, Demons, and Butterflies,” searching for a thesis before deciding if the first word had any meaning,

who hated the poetry of Spenser, Pope, and Shelley never reading Ginsberg, Sexton, or Dickey,

who perceived themselves as readers, wayward writers who wanted to master the subtleties of the English language,

who drew blank at an open-ended question until you served them the easy answer to the meaning of life,

who never analyzed Roger and Me, Harold and Maude, or The Jerk–contemplation might confront their repressed anxieties–but noticed the details of Romeo and Juliet after you had given them a synopsis of the tragedy,

who hated writing, sharing their unformulated thoughts, splashing imaginary meaning on paper while waiting for class to begin,

who despised you for towering above them, leaning over the royalty podium,

who listened to the same lesson plan you had given six years ago to their sisters,

who wondered how they would be forced to write in freshman composition,

who hoped for you again next year after discovering your grading style, your quirks to recieve an A,

until they enrolled in English 111, section 27 who faced a teacher more interested in life experience:

a foot pounding the soccer ball into the reach of the goalie’s fingertips and losing the game,

a grape soda can recalling an unreflected fear of staying home alone,

the terror of pooping in the middle of lunch without you granting them the right to use the restroom,

overcoming a fear of singing on stage,

finding five pages of art by pondering the meaning of elevator

the chaos of firetrucks and blazing buildings,

a life without a father around…..

who stared at the ceiling for many years before discovering their intrinsic ability, the passion of communal acceptance…

the ironing board paws the carpet where
is the can of Faultless lemon starch shirts
need ironed the one you wore yesterday
if you’ll decide to leave you’ll wear again
another day of your life or the one
life you live you can’t tell the difference
anyhow your son does’t know culture
america who paints blank slated mind
with repressed images contaminate
a temple of the holy ghost filters
drano poured into the stomach to scrape
away the dross and coat a new statue
of liberty the color of money
your wife would say is only in your head
thinks to join the circus become a clown
turns on music to pump a well that runs
deep fills quick when resorvoir dams inside
thoughts sink a boat you fish from when you need
truth of lie you dive through muggy water
spills oil on your newest levis jeans
grandpa died yesterday needs a few bucks
to buy some stain remover your soul moves
places you don’t go don’t know how you dreamed
of god last night the mother of jesus
sweats or pants did he really breathe on top
of joseph is the elixir of pain
suffering to preserve lungs the ozone
flawless falls into india’s fire
transcends ashes into the warmest flesh
the burning bush grows inside you await
to swim through god’s bowels until skin blisters
under the tree of knowledge ecstatic
naked sip a martini changes water
to wine where the blind man clicks his heels begs
for a coin to toss in the machine game
over drano combats clogged arteries
your grandpa swallowed

The Garden

I watch you move
from fallen pine cones
to needles you disregard
to the rim holding
the ancient sun,
where your grandmother
drooped to touch
the reflection of light
on tilled soil.

There in dirt,
wresting zanahorias,
she dreamed
of a withering heat
mocking the vision
of sprouting buds
and hailstones chopping
at her abandoned hut.

There in dirt,
the sun warping
Indian skin,
she grew anonymous
with nutrients.

There in the affirmed earth,
she became your dreamer,
burrowed beneath a lamp
of submission,
while in morning
you read
your father’s books:
Aquinas, Agustino,
el catecismo.

Her words like weeds
tapered beneath
a stalk of corn
came and went
with the chapped wind.

Her eyes exposed you
as a pigeon drifting
through air
then concealed you
as seed in the palm
of her fist.

She stood at a distance
throwing grain
on turned over soil
and turned it over again.

She was pitching you
a lost antiquity,
fostering a green jungle
to sweep fire
over country,
and preserving a prayer
to bury the demons
that hurled
against Atlantic winds,
to drain out
the unsettled forces
of Spanish fleets
that defied the dead.

My dark-eyed lover
drifting through the mist
of inherited regret,
your virgin bones
are drying out now,
blood pumped
away from roots
of swollen ankles.

Among plowed fields
she demanded
you shake out
the twitches
of original sin,
learn how sin
rewards you strength,
how humbling yourself
before the Lord
will drive you
into the sanctuary
of passion,
where the priest
who loosens
his collar bends you
lower to feel remorse,
lower to earth
to feel the burning
in your feet,
where he withdraws
the blood that clotted
you from turning
your back
on a garden of salt.

Your feet are beginning
to loosen,
to relax here
among pine cones
beyond the dark, dark ocean.
Waves like slave ships
roll through you,
toss you like sweat
adding fuel
to your eyes.

Into the North,
you flew,
expending seeds
of citrus
in Bogota, Havana,
Miami,
dropping them
as a path
that would bind you
back to the maze
of the Andes
and lead you
toward a garden
with strange vegetation:

pine trees shading
the heat of the sun;
pine cones hiding
the focus of earth.

Here,
you sweat,
linger for the moon
to appear
between sap and needle.
Alone here
with me
in a garden of pine cones,
you lie down
as a sacrifice.
As earth turns
around you,
you are crucified
by these hands
that mold your eyes
with clay.

You exalt me
as your lover,
turn before me
as a child bending
to worship my hands
as the crucifix,
while we watch
needles surround us,
poke holes in our pores,
and feed us,
a jungle blazing
over the earth.

death-call

cold wind

shuns

the thick wall

paint

while the roar

of ancient

sirens bleed

like the saint

on fire

with sin-scarred

restraint;

her white eyes

wired

from the tear

of her vein

twitch at the

telephone singing

to the heat of the

rain.

Demi-god

We were the young ones

who scraped our jaws against

wet fingernails and sucked light

from the dry-mooned river.

That music still beats in our skulls -

the unclothed rhythm

of air-filled lungs

breeds an unknown origin

where the facts twist like emotion

and scorch our tongues,

as we shape old tools

formed by wide-eyed fools.

We are the remnant

of pale, stoned gold,

carving images of ourselves

onto the dusty floor.

We step over

forest bones,

taking delight in the coming of the

sun’s silent moans

behind thick clouds

where new beginnings

yield to the howl

of hungry wolves

starving from instinct pains

during morning fog rains.

And we eat well

this morning,

and they can not abate us

as we smile without reason,

confront the weathered season,

chant the rosary song,

and move along

like a twitch

which fires through our palms to alert us.

Ode to Whitman

While you celebrate yourself,

Bow down, and gulp the stream,

I shake from dream to prayer,

Asking God why you did not choke,

Because I know I might have coughed

Although I swore I would have smiled.

I guess you can swallow

Better than I can dream.

When I walk along the beach,

And the night winds push the waves

Beyond the sands,

I run from salt and the deep purple specks

That brush against the rocks.

I fly to the seawall

To smell the fish with dried limbs,

With unpunctured wounds.

Do I dare lick the worm

That gnaws at the germ beneath my feet?

Do I dare blindly sink

My teeth into the mud

And feel around for some strange

Liquid fleeing to my lungs?

Would I dare to celebrate

The pathetic numbness

Of my twitching tongue?

–Moon

Tent near Illinois River / I awake to a powder snow and artifacts: / deer tracks in a morning sunglow –moon