The Visceral Joy of the Biker

For years, I dreamed that I could fly,

But this dream didn't have to die.

Instead, it found itself replaced

By something different on its face

But similar in ways that count.

I pilot earthly, urban mounts.

I don't feel wind blow through my hair;

The rest of me cuts through the air.

I bank through turns as if on wings.

I hardly know of better things.

Just kick, stomp, twist, and off I go:

The closest thing to flight I know.

To a 1979 Honda CG

When first we met, my nerves of steel

Turned melted cheese and pounded veal.

To say I had reactions mixed

Is like to say you needed fixed.

But th'understatement of them all:

I love the ride now, bumps and all.

May 16th 2014

Brilliant plans of man, frustrated;

Students who procrastinated;

Mid-unit review holidays;

Side conversations and delays;

Lessons short-cut or derailed;

Passes, missings, excused, and fails,

Or things impossible to grade;

Review games just some students played:

Overall grade–

I'm glad I came.

An Anecdotal Argument for 1:1 Student/Faculty Ratios

Another girl learns

To turn

Her hair before a phrase.

Someone closes his mouth,

Turns his eyes to the south,

So he can get a raise.

Someone leads a boy to think

That prowess, courage, strength

Are for the body only.

It's amazing how rapid

Life can teach girls to be vapid

Or otherwise be lonely.

The worldwide water cooler

Makes it so easy to slip

Into celebrity gossip,

and another mind

Dies on the vine.

Let's get there faster next time.

Rectangular Humanism

My brain is inalienable,

Impregnable to invasion from outer space.

I was seven years learning right from left;

I'll be seven learning right from wrong.

These truths I hold to be self-evident:

That all men were created separate,

and were endowed by their creator

With somewhat more than the other great apes

In certain various dimensions.

I suppose that makes me the humanest.

Self-Portrait By an Artist Running Out of Paint, Pt. 2

We are only ourselves in our reactions,

Those small, unscheduled intermissions

In this practiced, improvised performance,

and I, by reading and reading and reading,

In my quotidian quest to learn everything

Am finding that all this reading and knowing

Have half-begun to compromise

My potential for surprise.

The mirror's averted from my eyes.

I see the painted back instead.

How long 'til I'm a stranger in my head,

In my own house?

Self-Portrait By an Artist Running Out of Paint, Pt. 1

I am not an art …

I teach an art as aerobic …

It is the only way to do so …

It is so much work to do so …

Like one who sets a food budget that leaves her …

I find I have never been so tired for so …

I find I have never been so tired of …

I find it useless to wonder if I could be an …

As useless as wondering if I ever was an art …

I am as much one as the other …