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If only it were so easy.
Walk up to the ex-boy scout
Grown middle-aged
Behind the counter –
Or the sage librarian
At the typewriter –
For instruction on directions,
Career path, marriage prospects.
Someone to stop you
Swiping that credit card
At the check out
Every time you think of it.
“Don’t wrack up debt.”
And then, at 40, you’ve
Got a hefty savings. Yes,
Make peace with your
Finances and your soul.
Go to church, but don’t
Ever follow anyone’s rules
To the book and don’t
Judge others. “That’s what
We owe history: risk.”
The front page of The International Cryptozoology Museum’s floor map.
The back page of The International Cryptozoology Museum’s floor map.
This is Poem #35 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
This particular poem is part of a series inspired by my visit to The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. Some days I’d just point to a location on the museum map above, and write from there.
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When you’re in between
And change is mud season,
Mucky, murky, and you
Are stuck at the side of the road,
Avoiding the ruts
Got you nowhere.
There is fear in the middle.
No one loves uncertainty,
And the risk to move forward
Seems grim. It requires
A shedding of the past –
The tire iron at the ready.
We have nothing to believe
In anymore. Science her very self
Is under the microscope,
And condemned a witch.
Burn her at the stake.
Her feet sway under a long, grey,
Flax dress. Tiny black
slippers pointed like a ballerina’s.
We should have listened
To her long ago. But denial
Is so easy to believe
When the world is dying.
This is Poem #34 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
This poem is part of a series inspired by my visit to The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
After the third beer
The truth trips
Telling off his tongue.
He does a good job
Of masking contempt
Otherwise, but booze
Bring out the illogical
And unlock what he
Truly thinks. The way
To imagine her slunk
In a corner, cowering
At all he’s done
To rescue
Inferior her.
His willingness to take
On a fallen woman
A superman cape
His ego can wear
Around the other abuses.
“Get back down into
Yourself” he commands,
Indirectly, of course,
With words not chosen
But hurled forth
From the grey matter
Where they’ve drunk
Cocktails together for decades.
This is Poem #33 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
I have secrets from you.
This is not a good thing.
It’s a Big Foot gorging
and growing and gaining
Every day that I keep
My troubles inside.
He gluts himself
On the suffering
Of my lies
Then ducks behind
Rocks at each
Flashlight beam,
Camera flash,
Video echo.
I need to prove
With evidence substantiated
And secured by logic,
Facts, undoctored
Photographs,
And hope
That proof of discovery
Will not cause panic and fear
And a mad rush out
Of this quagmire.
This is Poem #32 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
The front page of The International Cryptozoology Museum’s floor map.
This poem is part of a series inspired by my visit to The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I suppose it’s more
Politically correct to call
Them “Undocumented
Species” – the creatures
Generations of folks
See. All over the world,
Here, Big Foot, there, the Yeti.
Here the Mountain Lion,
There, El Chupacabra.
Sometimes a sea serpent
Appears to lift
Your ship up above
The ocean. It is easier
To keep yourself secret
Underwater with depths
Too deep for humans
To explore –
Places where the pressure
Of salt seas would squish
Our heads –
Implode our ears,
our brains –
Where there is not light,
But phosphorescence,
And dreams.
In the hills the Himalayas
Or the rural towns of Maine,
How do giant fur men hide
So well not the gift of official
Shelter remains found?
This is Poem #31 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
This poem is part of a series inspired by my visit to The International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
The front page of The International Cryptozoology Museum’s floor map.
On February 24, 2016, while staying at The Inn at Park Spring in Portland, ME, my husband and I happened upon an add for The International Cryptozoology Museum. This is the world’s ONLY museum focused on the subject of Cryptozoology, or the study of creatures not yet proven to exist, also known as cryptids. Of course, we had to go!
While there, I experienced an epiphany that only the joy of discovery can inspire as we ventured through the place, and learned that not only are creatures like Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster studied, but also the North Eastern Mountain Lion and creatures that were later verified, such as the museum’s mascot, the coelacanth, once considered a cryptid but now, thanks to a specimen, proven to exist. These “monsters” all fall under the umbrella of this work.
The next morning, I wrote:
Next, onto The National Cryptozoology Museum – which was pretty interesting and filled with artifacts, “evidence” of undocumented species. Even the North Eastern Panther – or “Mountain Lion” or Catamount was there. And – I’ve seen one – crossing the street – at night -large and lanky. Too big to be a dog or coyote, too skinny to be a black bear.
I was so taken in by what I had learned that day, that I began a series of poems inspired by the creatures and the science that I’d experienced as I sauntered through exhibits.
Today’s submission, Poem #31, is the first of these.
The front page of The International Cryptozoology Museum’s floor map.
The back page of The International Cryptozoology Museum’s floor map.
A Poem Inspired by a Bottle of Wine
An angel hovers –
Robes floating around her –
Billowing breezes come.
Her sword is ready
For the kill. When wrongs
Are done, do we do
The work of Vengeance
Or allow Karma
To do his work? Smite
Those who wrong and who
May never know
The blame to accept.
A bottle of wine
Banshee and Angels
Sell pressed grapes
And 11.6% alcohol.
Vindicated: when all
Is again right with
The world.
Smite: people do
Not use this word enough
Anymore.
The Angel raises her sword
Above her robes; do not
Distract her from
Her delicate work.
This is Poem #30 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
I appreciate your feedback as these poems are not “finished,” and I intend to go back into many of them in the future.
They can move a structure
Across towns and cities –
Away from its original,
River home – to stand
Like new. These ancient
buildings, bridges, school
Houses that have witnessed
Proposals, weddings, learning.
Spitballs cemented to the ceiling.
They sell it to you
For one dollar.
You shell out thousands
for new plots and
Taking down power
And phone lines
For the slow crawl
From one spot to another.
Repurpose. Reinvent.
And the ladies drink
Coffee from tall, steel
Percolators.
The sugar sprawled
across the table
and the leaking creamer
Spreads like spilled blood.
Word on the street is that eventually
teachers will need to be versed in more
than lockdown drills and covering
classroom windows. Some schools are
already offering up PD in
active shooter response training –
What little old me would be expected
to do in the face of
a Dylan Klebold or Adam Lanza.
I’ve weathered events with my
Students. I was in the classroom
Tuesday, April 20, 1999, when Columbine
Became an event and not a city. How could
We not suspect every student in a trench coat
After that? I sat all day with my seniors
As the images of 9/11 blasted
Us through the box
Television sets suspended in each classroom.
And the news of Newtown
Came through on a student’s
iPhone Period 8. We turned to a
Screen again. (At HDHS, clean, modern,
new, one floor of classrooms. Me near
the main entrance, an easy target – my
first classroom – awash with posters, pens,
pencils, and peril.)
President Clinton’s Response to the Columbine Shooting
This is Poem #28 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I decided for one year to wake mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee on each day that I didn’t teach. I was working part-time then, so in the end I wrote 241 poems. These are second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
I appreciate your feedback as these poems are not “finished,” and I intend to go back into many of them in the future.
