Happiness in the Present

Fiction is tantalizing
My senses
As I recount a past
Misdirected.
Genre of fantasy,
Romance, drama
As if I walk between
The pages of a contemporary
Bronte novel.
It is natural
To rewrite history
In the silent solitude
Of one's day
As children nap
And the trees outside tap
On the window pane.
It is in the glee
Of playful children
I return to happiness
In the present.

Lunch Duty

(I wrote this my second year of teaching, ten years ago. I was teaching in a large urban high school at the time MCAS, the Massachusetts state test, became high-stakes. As I work with undergraduates interested in becoming teachers, I am reminded of my energy and desire to improve the system. With the recent rhetoric regarding teachers' incompetence and the need for more rigorous accountability, I am reminded of this poem and a few others I wrote during this time as a new teacher. I still think it is applicable today as teachers and students are demanded to conform to the status quo. While students deserve good schools, teachers deserve the opportunity to provide this good school. If teachers lack control over their situation and are denied the support to improve themselves and their classrooms, then their morale and their engagement will continue to decline, thus perpetuating low student engagement, performance, and achievement. I view myself as a professional who worked diligently to become a better teacher for the benefit of my students. I consider myself a fairly successful and effective teacher, but I had to spend much time combating the suffocating high-stakes culture.)

As I stand on sore, achy feet
On mud colored carpet, enclosed
By yellow walls
Of high school students conversing and
Stuffing all the starch provided
By the school
Down their long, thin, thick, bony necks,
I sometimes catch the
Unpleasant glimpse of a young girl
Gaunt, looking at the caloric count
Of a diet soda, while chatting with friends
Who sit in subtle discomfort.

As I look upon the faces of youth,
I begin to miss my once idealistic state of mind
When life seemed tough,
But I had time to define a way out.

Faded eyes is not what I intended to find
As I stand here listening
To young men abuse young women and
The women laugh in frozen submission
To their place in the circle.
Some slap him. Others screech obscenities.
The young men laugh in frozen submission
To their place in the circle.

Unfulfilled eyes is not what I intended to find
Attempting to entertain students with state
Mandated writing as yawns of bored conformity
Create uncertainty of the possibility
That I have little idea how to manipulate
The system to entertain gracefully and
Remain favorable in the eyes of the State.

I begin to miss my idealistic reactions to
Infractions on humankind. Water
Embraces my right eye as I peruse
The area making sure all follow the cardinal,
Cafeteria rule:
Four bodies to a table
And
Throw out your trash.

Test Scores: Plain and Simple

"When I die, I want my standardized test score,
Every one of them, carved into my gravestone."

"When I retire from teaching, I want my students to
Remember me as the teacher who increased their test scores."

"I am looking forward to the time my children become
School-age, so they will be exposed to high-stakes tests.
It will show them whether they will be a have or a have not."

"Who am I? I am the 75th percentile."

While assessing performance is a necessary part
Of determining progress,
A single "one fits all" assessment is incapable of
Capturing the intellectual growth of a person.

While accountability may be necessary when
Holding a large government institution in charge
Of serving the nation's children,
One person cannot be solely responsible
For its success or failure.
This is truly irresponsible.

We, as a nation, inadequately support the development
Of thoughtful citizens when we apply narrow-minded agendas;
Ironically, we perpetuate the mis-education of millions of students
And their teachers,
All in the name of accountability.

Accountable to whom?
Accountability to what?
Turning a complex context like teaching
And learning into a simple formula
Is counter-intuitive.
Plain
and
Simple.

Love Crawlers

You left me standing in the road
No where left to go
So I roamed,
I roamed
Clutching the remnants of my soul.

I left you quiet on the phone
No one to speak to for years after
So you moved on
Moved on,
Like usual
To experience a new heart exchange
Only to find yourself searching once again.

Through poetics, we attempt communication as
Symbols and metaphors bridge
Our imaginations
While never revealing the muse.

Carpe Diem believer no more,
For my reflections are caught in recurrence,
Whirling around and around.
The wind is fierce
So I fall down and crawl
Underneath the flying debris
In between the lines on each stanza I read.

Cancer Steals

Cancer steals. It is a vicious thief,

Without any remorse.

It strives ferociously for immortality,

To replace life-blood with itself.

Cancer steals. It is a misanthrope,

Uncaring and egotistical.

Detesting  humanity,

Hijacking people’s identity.

Cancer steals. It is Darwinian,

Survival of the fittest,

A sore loser,

Never playing fair.

Evolving faster than medical imagination.

Cancer steals. It blindfolded

My father. It turned my family

Into desperate, feeble witnesses.

Leaving me with the haunting realization:

I could become one of its random victims.

I want cancer to steal my anger,

But it has been cremated.

I want cancer to steal my sadness,

But it has been buried.

If only I understood all that cancer has stolen,

Then maybe I could take life back.

Unknown

It is quiet on the moon
Footprints never fade
The crisp blue of the Earth in view
Momentary awe
Life at a distance

No air
Just dust
Surrounded by stars
Darkness amidst its glow

Beauty
Overcomes the intellect
Meaning unbound

For an instance
I am a rocket ship
For an instance
Experience is redefined

Hidden

The words are hidden beneath my tongue

Warm and comfortable

Afraid yet secure

I cough

I spit

I yell

Only repetitions of the same words are released

While new, more accurate, more mature words are squirreled away

I know this because my tongue feels heavy with thought

Yet, in the mirror I see nothing but the same pink, average tongue

I try to swallow these words in hope the stomach acid will shock them

Force them to jump out of my mouth

So I know I have discovered new meaning

Is not life about the constant discovery of meaning?

Why then do these words lay dormant?