Study Hall

I sit in an uncomfortable silence, watched but unsupervised.
The unwelcome symphony of my every movement
Stiffens my worn, arthritic ears.  I yearn to stretch them.

I sit in a painful silence, supervising a room full of trained humans
Who have been told that their thoughts are irrelevant,
That the expression thereof is unwelcome.

The silence can make a silence uncomfortable.
Only the explanation can make a silence painful.

Intrusion will make that silence unbearable.

The Battle Hymn of the Unadaptable English Teacher

A day may come when the traditional curriculum fails,
When we assign contemporary texts
and let students choose their assessments,
But it is not this day.

An hour of rigor and relevance,
When the cultural canon comes crashing down,
But it is not this day.

This day we write!

By all that you hold dear, I bid you,
Sit down in rows.

No, Galileo!

I used to think you circled me
In deep orbit.
I used to think there was something
That held you to me.
I was looking too hard for you
To see.

I am no Galileo.
You are the attractive one.
I am the attracted one,
and I should have known.

I am spinning in circles.

She Is Like Water

She is like water –
Seventy percent of my world.

She is like water –
Almost unbelievably common.

She is like water –
She washes the day's grime away.

She is like water –
Almost unbelievably awesome.

She is like water –
Perfect, by nature or design.
She is part of me –
Temporarily mine.

Anecdotal Proof of Chemical Imbalance in the Human Brain

Today, I did things I should
Things I wanted
and thinks I should want.
I read, wrote and studied.
I listened to good music
and used the one-track repeat
For one charitably called lousy,
The kind that gets me excited
Though I only sort of like it,
and then I ran around like
A low, wide, wild man-island
Pushing up with only the sea around me.
Then I joked and I talked,
and for the first time in a long one, I listened,
The first time this week I was present and not missing.


It's hard to believe I was depressed when I woke up this morning.

Molten Core

I simmer and seethe with a molten core,
Which ripples and roils, just waiting to roar,
With a furious fire that thirsts for fuel,
Too violent and thoughtless to truly be cruel.
Or perhaps the truth is that I am the core,
Painted up fancy to look like I'm more.

Branches and Roots

The heart has thousands of branches and roots
Spread high as the forehead and deeper than boots,
Drawing forth sustenance, pushing forth waste,
Growing as needed, as anchored in place.
and as trees play the pendulum, swing in rhythm and creak,
So does the heart keep time, thump and beat
From its place on the left, felt by nerves going right,
Asleep's still awake to the rhythm of life.