And then there were

"Sugar Daddy Potential" - My friend Heather used this phrase while talking about a guy she met at a required conference for work. He was 47, single, and unmarried, so his "sugar daddy potential" was kinda high. In a joking sense of course. Kinda. But no, really. ------------------ "If they know you can do it, they'll ask you to do it." -This also came up during my conversation with Heather. We were talking about how managers and bosses will ask you to do a new task constantly the minute they find out you can do it. When I worked at books-a-million, anyone that made it through cafe training found themselves stuck over there 3 to 4 times a week. ------------------ "'Pissed off' isn't a bad word; I do it every day." -A student of mine said this on Tuesday when trying to defend his language and not get in trouble. Since he pisses every day, he doesn't think "pissed off" should count as bad language. ------------------ ...

Myth I was asleep while you were dying. It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow I make between my slumber and my waking, the Erebus I keep you in, still trying not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow, but in dreams you live. So I try taking you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning, my eyes open, I find you do not follow. Again and again, this constant forsaking. * Again and again, this constant forsaking: My eyes open, I find you do not follow. You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning. But in dreams you live. So I try taking, Not to let go. You’ll be dead again tomorrow. The Erebus I keep you in—still , trying— I make between my slumber and my waking. It’s as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow. I was asleep while you were dying. ---------------------- Partly Cloudy I was learning, while you were barely breathing, that twelve times eight is somewhere below one hundred: those multiplication tables delay my learning of your death. They are mind fog, never all...

Meek’s use of enjambment astounds me. Not only does she break lines and leave “weak” words as the last words of lines, but she often uses comma one to three words before the line break. This double pause forces the reader to move slower through a poem than usual. The poem “Courantijn River” includes instances like this multiple times within just the first stanza. A few examples are line 3 (she uses a colon, "transparency," and then a line break) and line 11 (she uses a period, comma three words later, “such,” and then a line break. These pauses don’t create a stuttering effect, but rather ample opportunity for pauses and breathing. The pauses also highlight the syntax of the piece. The commas at the end of lines are just as important as the commas at the center of the piece. This specific poem, especially in the first sentence, spirals downward somewhat like a roller coaster. The lines take you one way and then break off to go another direction, all to end with the pleasant p...

Space Sandra, the glass set you bought is bowing out, one of us keeps dropping them for no apparent reason: sometimes the cupboard door grazes a hand, sometimes dropping a glass is the only act to cancel out the risk of a splinter. The shards go everywhere, every time; we don’t find some until months later, after countless sweeps. The family is afraid that if we replace the glasses, then we’ll have to replace the mugs and the dishes and the soup bowls. We’re running out of domestic space that you picked out. This is what the dead do. They go everywhere, every time, and we don’t find them until months later, after countless sweeps. We are afraid that if we replace where you used to be, then we’ll replace the mugs and the dishes and the soup bowls, push you out of the house like an ex-wife. When will Marie Howe tell us what the dead do while we do what the living do?

“Grounding” by Sandra Meek 5th and 6th Stanza […]That summer, retracing my parents’ younger lives, I drove past the red-stone mental hospital where they’d worked, through what use to be countryside, good rock hunting, now a clutter of suburban yards, bricked fences. What I learned from my father: it’s stasis that kills, and face cards are always the ones to keep. From my mother: self is just what doesn’t leave you. What I taught myself between flights, to orbit any celestial stone is to lose everything but direction. On the margin of a neighborhood going up, the only roses I unearthed were failed partial blooms: one side ridged, the other smooth as an Amish doll’s face the maker leaves unfeatured to avoid sin, the graven image. As if God didn’t know to go any deeper. --------------------- One vacation, transcribing my earlier trips to beaches, I crept over black sand, sea weed, and shells into the ocean where Uncle Scott tossed me like an inflatable boy. A cold Great Lake: just jump in...

Build On Top Of The Dead Four years of I don’t have the time morphs into blanks routes to a place you have only been six times. The tree, we’ll call it an oak, that would provide shade for mother’s grave were it two plots up and two to the left, is gone. The flowers two plots to the right diagonally that need a dumping: thick and black slush. Imitation flowers gave stable color, but the bereaved know the sway of real flowers are appreciated, make the grave look better, convince others that see the grave through periphery that a family cares. Fake flowers never gift the living, so it makes sense. It makes sense that I can’t remember the grave site, but people I haven’t met before will believe the land was rezoned. Built on top of the dead is a Chevron, an exit with No Return Access, and public storage.

"If you're still planning on teaching, you'll need passion and Xanax." A teacher asks me daily if I am still considering teaching, as if the students I deal with could scare me away. This was the most recent response after I said I still planned to teach. ---------------- "'No Child Left Behind' doesn't mean no child left behind HERE." While criticizing what the government and school systems pass down, this comment was thrown out. Some people in charge seem to misunderstand the doctrine, passing kids that they would rather not deal with on to the high school where they will continue to fail. ---------------- "He's just so lazy; slow as molasses. If he was molasses, he wouldn't even run down hill." My supervising teacher made this comment about a student that gets A's one day every couple of weeks. He is smart, but dislikes most types of work. ---------------- "If one of us said, Andy, when Andy wasn't there, that si...

Dolls (stanza 8) At Baby Dolls, some wise guy thinks he’s funny: A dollar for the doll , he slips his five beneath her garter. She makes it come alive, it disappears, he looks her up and down upon her pedestal. A mere pronoun, she leans against the pole as if to suffer a different kind of passion, as if no lover, no proper gentleman will ever touch her. She strolls the strobe-lit stage where all must judge her. He’s loud, has drunk too much: Me Tarzan, you Jane. He bares his chest; she’s not allowed. In vain, she looks away to the mirror across the room, and briefly wonders who she fools or whom. --------------------------------- Stripped The Red Garter’s $5 cover strips me of my last ones. I’m down a wad of cash that was thick as a condom three pack but who’s daughter are you? I won’t assume you’re a mother, whore, or sister, but surely you have a father and he can’t possibly support rubbing gloss off this stage with your crotch. The creak of the stage when the music dies pops just li...

Moving I grew up finger painting and scarring the strapped load peeking over the bed of this Ford, cruise control on 75, missing wiper blade, tires that couldn’t hold a penny. Illegally in the HOV, I cut through four lanes for trouble, off the pike to a continuous left through two lights, hurried South to the curb of our faded, thirty year old house. I needed the ratty welcome mat that doesn’t welcome anymore. You fired up that fucking Ford and hauled our one legged kitchen table with four feet, four chairs with four legs, dark as dry blood grain mashed potato coated seats but maybe this trip is your first to a side of town I can’t find. Maybe you didn’t expect to rush past me amid your leaving. Maybe I still have three trips to catch you clearing out the first floor of the house. I broke the strap to that. Ate that at age 3. I must thank your forgetfulness and the second floor furniture, but how could you not employ Mayflower to cover and tow away the furnish I grew up with? Why did ...

The Missing Child Like token feathers plucked from a broken bird, the parents are separated from their daughter. The dresses on their hangars don’t say a word, and slumping like a dirty shirt, the father wears unaware his stains. What was labor and what was a given? Breathing was a given. The mother dreams she is her own neighbor who has a living daughter. The father is driven livid by men in suits and women in jewels. The parents, when they put on their masks and walk away from each other as those who pace in duels, keep walking with their faith turned dumbest luck and accordions for lungs. Her birthday chair is light and heavy, like cake flour. Or air. --------------------------------------- Teachable Moment A child can accomplish anything as long as a friend is near; can tell time vicariously through a best friend. What you learn, I know. We work like a colored lens and light. The observing teacher imagines them as attached twins, or teaching them how to read short and long hands, b...

"You speak another language when you talk to them." -A quote from my supervising teacher. During my first observation at Temple Middle School, the teacher introduced me at the beginning of every class. A student that was in 1st period Literature and 2nd period Language Arts asked midway through Language Arts who I was. --------------------------- "They use your portfolio to send you to jail. They don't test you." -This is a quote from an old news report/special called "Testing, Testing, Testing." During one scene, a professor at DePaul University criticized standardized testing, noting that you must test to become a cop, firefighter, social worker, and often as a student, though students benefit more from portfolio and exhibition work. The professor noted how they observe your portfolio or rap sheet to send you to jail. ----------------------------------- "That's before robots took over." -A Toyota commercial during the above news special...

Ridding my poetry of the explanatory “becausing” consists of using my backspace button often. I’m not sure where the style came from, but I often use a lofty and archaic diction in my poetry. I don’t aim to sound Victorian, nor do I aim to sound contemporary and modern, but I definitely like the rhythm of my poetry once I remove “because,” “since,” “whereas,” and the like. Though I like the way “thus” sounds, the word is nothing more than an ornament. Aside from rhythm, it brings nothing to my writing. I am sacrificing those words while trying to find other words in order to maintain the same rhythm. The goal of workshop for me is ridding my work of words that merely take up space. There is a different between my poetry and my literary criticism, so I need to put more effort into making that contrast apparent. I find that my poetry hits harder when I remove “is like” and qualifiers that I use out of comfort. I never use qualifiers out of purpose or intent. Basically, I need to become m...

Third World What does it feel like or look like to be so poverty stricken, so third worldly that you can’t even accept aid from other countries, your run ways are crowded and can’t handle the incoming flights? The air traffic controllers directing in planes with a walkie talkie system, the three men over in the tall grass, could bring this whole operation to a stall if they so wished, trying to guide the aid here, showing the Chinese, first to arrive, where to stand their flag. When natural disasters strike, we’ve learned to run out and hunt for aluminum goods, C batteries, and distilled water, but where do you run if the streets are littered with loitering dead bodies? Where do you run if your shattered leg can barely stand to rest beside you? Could you run if you’re three days past dehydration?

How Do You Lip Sync Your Skin What do you do with a Texas amid all the foreshadowing that warns Texas will drag out moisture with a dry heat and drag you along gravel depending on the tone of your skin? Cinema says you may open your eyes with a toilet bowl for a head and water for air, drowning in racist piss. How am I saying one thing with my shade that isn’t me, not quite what I sound like? How am I exaggerating my tone and sound, perfecting voice so that everyone foolishly succumbs to the music and believes I’m something other than person. I’m sitting outside of this bus station restroom in Texas, toilet water circling me like a shadow, clearly saying one thing with my tone; my pitch is so high that I can’t accurately hear it, even though they label me dog. I mouthed sorry and I didn’t mean to stare on the cloth of their shirts but I think they felt bring it on .

Landscape with Saxophonist by Thylias Moss The usual is there, nondescript trees opened like umbrellas, pessimists always expecting rain, chickadees whose folding and unfolding wings suggest the shuffling and reshuffling of the cardsharp’s deck; nothing noteworthy except the beginning saxophonist blowing with the efficacy of wolves addicted to pigs, blowing down those poorly built houses, the leaves off the trees, the water in another direction, the ace of spades into the ground with the cardsharp’s bad intentions. The discord and stridency set off landslides and avalanches; his playing moves the earth, not lovers who are satisfied too quickly And by the wrong things. -------------------------------------- Texts with Poets The unusual is there, boys tears drowning the world, coffins riding on top of Mercedes, men whose agitation and rumbling in the washer reminisces grumbling and commotion of shoes and pillows in a dryer; everything’s noteworthy except the amateur poet writing with the...

"It must suck to be tall; you're closer to the rain." -My friend Caroline told me about saying this to a friend one night that is around 6' 5" -------- "Geek out" -Another quote from my friend Caroline. She uses this phrase whenever a bunch of English majors get together, implying that we need to "geek out" every once and a while with people that understand our passion. --------- "I'll be hitting skins by the end of the work week." -My friend Chuck said this in reference to a girl he is trying to get with that wants to get with him just as bad. --------- "Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head" -Lyric by Jeff Buckley in "I Know It's Over," which I didn't discover until a year ago. And just now discovered is a cover. --------- "Unconditional positive reserve" -The foundation of how counselors must feel towards their patients.

Most of Matejka’s works contain a formulaic balance between pointed, veiled sentences that I presume are based in personal history and crafted turns of language. “Do The Right Thing,” for example, summarizes a meeting with director Spike Lee, but contains lines such as “he edited me like my name/ was Pino” and “the missed free throw feeling in my chest.” Spike Lee didn’t literally edit the speaker as if he were a character in Do The Right Thing , but this language shows us how the speaker felt. Matejka likely chose this route, as opposed to saying “he changed the way I felt.” With the “free throw” line, once again, Matejka introduces an emotion often overlooked for poetry, more likely found on a Sportscenter recap. The idea of a missed free throw feeling in ones chest tells us how the speaker feels, but since a basketball game didn’t literally take place, Matejka shows us how the speaker felt.

Sweet Potato Peels I see you and though you cannot stand up I watch your destruction float around the room Flies from the garbage heap you have become keep buzzing at me as I stand and watch you sink sank sunk into that plastic bag number two I think I cannot, will not, recycle the name I used to call you Just continue to be my grandma down in Hawkinsville or Macon, whichever my memory settles on

Affirmative Action I’m caught in a bouquet of skin and hair. Slaves, up and down my blood like a boot in mud. A constellation of almost haves and never knews pointing north. That’s why my childhood is a handful of oceans and warped wood, shaken like dice. Hopscotch lips, double ply knees. On the one hand, sand and spit. On the other, a coffle of spiders eating under a split fist moon. Free means artifice. Being free means standing on a stanchion of jive, black face or otherwise. ------------------------------------ -A MSN headline this morning read "Wizards G won't contest ban." I wish, just for the sake of skipping misreadings, that it read guard and not "G," which I read as "gangster" upon second and third reading. With this improv, I decided to try to write using only a quote, the story behind it, and my reading of both. “Wizards G won’t contest ban” We’re caught in a lexicon of slang and skin. Why would a Wizard contest a season long ban from black...

Spontaneous Combustion You are planning to give in, ready to give up smoking your last carton and pack and answer stick what’s that itch? You’ve wanted to spontaneously combust on this Lay-Z-Boy since I pledged to never leave your side, your sole, your chest or your small. I want to stick by you, like any good pet, to conform to you, seep into you like burnt clothing you should have removed, since I know you had this all planned out, but if this image is not beautiful then I will hold on like a burn, 2nd degree if possible, merely so you shall never return me or heal me away.

Haters What have you done, Cornelius? Never mind. We know what you’ve done: marrying white, creating a child of stuttered pigmentation from disco and chalk. In this state, anyone north of the Red River is a Yankee—ignorant of anything pecan and already sweetned. Cornelius, those same Yanks think your son is Mexican. One good thing about Texans: they know their Mexicans. Your son will still be madhousing bigotry’s matinee, Cornelius. Living in that special place for the multiple checker of race boxes, an enabler of exoticism down here. He will be the man riding the bus in tux and tie. Some other riders will want him gone in that gone for good Way even though they are not sure why. --------------------------------------------- Cold Feet What you should have done, Charles, is never minded the car wash. Instead, minded your watch, married on time in grandmother’s humid sun room, carpeted with a Easter basket grass green. Hawkensville humidity soaks cotton like caked blood of a battered bla...

"You're handicap ramp isn't up to code...for every inch off the ground, there should be a foot of ramp." -This comment, though probably factual, was a smart ass comment by a guy that came into the health center after me. I think he knew the staff pretty well and decided to brighten their day with some jabs. ------- "You are mind f*cking blowing me away!!!" -My friend Andrew yelled this at a GPS system when instead of recalculating his route, it told him to turn around...for the next five minutes of the drive." ------- "Ni**as Are Scared of Revolution" -Song title by Gil Scott Heron. More of a declaritive and spoken style, but still a song. ------- "I can't stand when they bleep out ni**er or write it with asterisk. When you bleep it out, you're forcing me to say it in my head and that ain't right." -I can't quote this right, but a few weeks ago, a friend of a friend was quoting a comedian he heard that said something ...