Substitute Teacher

The differences between teacher and substitute

Are in hiring committees and line of sight.

The teacher sees an expanse of potential, pitfalls and progress.

The substitute sees the gamut of genuine human emotions –

Relief, slight excitement, and crushing boredom.

I don't know what the hiring committee saw.

All Dressed Up for the Crystal Ball

You couldn't have known better than to ask a poet

What he sees when he looks at you.

You should have, but you couldn't.

Even from back here in the present

I can see that you're the kind of beautiful

That will attract a long line of people

Who will never even notice your kindness, your brilliance,

The joy that shares the atmosphere with you,

and I want to find a way to warn you

Without telling you,

Because knowing ahead of time

Just drops the heart an extra story

and ends in the same place.

That Demon Expectation

You can't expect me to give in to these demands.

You know I'd sooner say “no” out of hand.

You can't push this unreason on a reasonable man.

You have to know exactly where I stand,

But you don't stop coming at me.

You can't expect me to sit here and take this.

You can't expect me not to think it.

You can't expect me to sit here and listen,

If that's really what you're saying,

But that's exactly what you're saying you expect.

I should have known that this would happen. Off my toes,

I'm sorry I let you think me exposed.

I'm half to blame if I keep asking where this goes,

But now I can't help following my nose.

I think I know what stinks.

One Wing Broken

I remember when I thought I had talent.

...

Anyway, I remember liking to pretend.

There's a certain innocence

To believing that you're good at things.

I still remember who took mine.

No matter how high I manage to get,

I will never fly the same way again.

Litosophical Conundrum?

Inspiration blows in on the breeze and the dolors.

You might say my muse wraps herself in many colors.

It's impossible to predict a poem.

So I frequently find myself facing philosophical conundrums,

Choices which I'm always in a rush to make.

Is it better to try a (presumed) creative take

On a topic I find trite, almost feloniously overdone,

Or not to write one?

Physisophical Conundrum

Dear every single solitary woman,

You are a physisophical conundrum.

I'm not trying to be a misogyn.

It isn't really you I'm blaming.

I find many of you pleasant, utterly.

To saw the old cliché, it's not you, it's me.

It's not that you're A pos, it's that I'm AB.

I am the universal Mr. Wrong.

I like my sin too much to date a Christian,

and God too much to date girls who don't believe in one.

Most of all, the lifestyle I'm craving...

This lifestyle I'm creating...

What I'm saying...

Is that I won't have the energy for a relationship that's work,

and I don't want you to wear yourselves out on a jerk,

...so consider me married to my pen?

Happy Ending

You said you still wanted to be friends,

But we're not.

I'm not sure we ever were.

Relationships are all give and take,

But friendship gives and reluctantly accepts.

You were mostly good at the taking.

We were.

I don't think I know how to pine for you.

I only know how to miss you,

Though I am relieved that it is over.

I guess I know this as the perfect ending.

Nothing was lost.