April 27: Poem 26

2:28 (a.m.)

by M. Desing

 

At 2:28 (a.m.)

I lie awake in bed

hearing the gentle thunder

of a cargo train,

rolling over rime-covered fields

and ice-glazed paths

 

Thinking how lucky the engineer is

to be alone with his thoughts

at 2:28 (a.m.)

with miles of track before him,

 

His future lay out

in neat rows of wooden struts

at right angles to steel track

drawing him on

 

To infinity.

Notes

Another cheat day. I didn't think ahead to how creatively draining it would be to talk about poetry with students all day and then try to get fired up to write a poem... so here is one that I wrote before, but will be using with students this week. I am completely and totally breaking the rules I established for this project - but it's still a poem I wrote, so at its heart it is in line. Furthermore, I only have about six more decent poems in my notes anywhere, so at worst ten of the poems for a year of poetry would come from my archives, which means (even if I miss a day here and there) I would produce 300 or so original poems... which is a lot.

April 26: Poem 25

My Head is the Moon

By M. Desing

My head is the moon,

A round orb

Where the meteor of cancer

Has left a deep crater.

My head is the moon,

A senseless rock

Circling in a cosmic dance

That has no discernible end.

My head is the moon,

A thing of mythic significance

Where ancient rituals

Call forth its power.

My head is the moon,

But it’s no moon.

It’s a space station.

And somewhere,

Roger Waters flow into 

a sea of tranquility 

on the dark side 

of the moon.

Notes

Wow but I am cheating a lot. I missed yesterday, even though I wrote a poem for my class and spent all day talking about poetry... but never posted one. Furthermore, I'm breaking one of my rules - this is a poem I wrote maybe two years ago, but realized how much I love it (especially the last stanza) and decided to post it despite my pledge not to do that. Meh. It's my blog. Whatever :)

April 23: Poem 23

You cannot tread

the road you should

without leaving

the one you're on.

Notes

Changes are coming. I don't know where they lead. I just know that the current path is failing.

Aprl 18: Poem 18

In my classroom
teaching again
but it's loud outside
because men with jackhammers
need to get the work done

and there's a charcoal kitten
scratching at the classroom door
trying to get out
so I let it

because it's time to teach

but the principal
runs up
to put the cat back in
because they are
gathering lost cats
and using my room
to hold them

so 

I go back to teach
but there is a girl
in the back
sitting on her boyfriend's lap
and he's sixteen
and she's in middle school
and I'm about to say something
but I look down

and realize

I've been in my underwear
the whole time

and think

well

I have to teach.

Waking

my dog next to me

gently kicking my side
with his hind legs
running to something
or away from it

or maybe
just on an errand

to find my pants.

Notes

I had to write this at 3:30 in the morning because it just happened. This is the first draft and I"m not changing a thing. I don't have anxiety about going back to school tomorrow, YOU have anxiety about going back to school tomorrow.

April 15: Poem 15

That look

when I misspell
or read it wrong

I cannot Waffle
Wordle's not strong

it says

oh
and you're 
an English Teacher
and a Doctor

And I. 

Beat. 

You.

And I

want to punch something.

Notes

No interpretation needed.

April 14: Poem 14

Sometimes
it's hard

to bear the crowbar

and pry open 
the foot locker

of secret thoughts

to puke them on a page.

On those days

I'd rather
go back to bed

and dream
of nothing.

Notes

I didn't feel like writing a poem today. I didn't want to write a poem today. I don't feel like dealing with feelings today. So, here's today's poem. 

April 13: Poem 13

When I was four

My friend Timmy and I

would play Batman and Robin

with my action figures

because he didn't have any

but he had a big wheel.

So I got to ride his big wheel

sometimes

and he got to be Batman

alltimes.

And I always said

I liked being Robin

better anyway.

But maybe

I just accepted

I would never 

be Batman.

Notes

No idea where this one came from. I assume it's my subconscious starting to dig into all of these little nooks and crannies to see what it can find. Again, I've got almost a year left of these to do, so I'm training my brain to keep the radar up. I presume at the end of this year I'm going to think a little differently - the discipline of forcing myself to ponder a moment or an image in this way every day is going to have some kind of long-term benefit, right?

Or not. I suppose we'll see. 

April 12: Poem 12

If what you are writing

does not discomfit you

casting a dull ache into your gut

and impart trepidation 

that your mom will bring it up

during Sunday dinner

then write something else.

Notes

This is the only poem I completely scrapped. I wrote and published a poem a few hours ago, went back to it, and actually hated it. I hate this one less.

One good thing about writing a poem every day: I don't feel any pressure for them all to be great. I already think I have written 1 or 2 really good poems this month, so now it's all gravy; if I come out of the year with ten really, really good poems, that is a productive year of poetry writing. How many truly great poems has your favorite poet really produced? 

I expected that pushing myself to write every day would create pressure, but it actually releases it; I know that I get another chance tomorrow to redeem myself if today is terrible. I don't think today is terrible, by the way, but it's also not going to be in my final top ten. It's better than what I had before, though :)  

April 11: Poem 11

I write 
to an audience of me

because I know

you 

might never read this

and I try 

not to be sad about it.

Notes

I learned a while ago to only write what I'd want to read. I am not guaranteed any audience at all, and sometimes the people who I really hope will read my work never do. So, I accept that and write to myself. Often, I am writing to myself at different ages; I wish I could say this to 20-year-old me. It would have made many things much easier.

April 9: Poem 9

I used to think

Poetry

was a maiden in milky dress
amid fields of poppies
nigh crystal streams

But now I know

Poetry

is more often

a dead squirrel 
sprawled on hot blacktop
with its guts exposed
looking like
cranberries

or 

a festering sore
that won't stop oozing
because you just can't
stop picking at it

So now

I like 

Poetry 

better.

Notes

I am going to be teaching a poetry unit when I return to school after spring break, and I'm thinking about what I might want to say to my students as we dive in. I don't know if I'll share this poem (they're in eighth grade - so maybe)... that squirrel image is in my brain since I saw it when I was about ten and riding my bike. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't stop looking.

I struggled with the word 'nigh' in the third stanza. The word is typically used for time, whereas I use it here for location. I was going to change it, but then I thought about Ophelia, and how she dies in water even though she is largely the character in this image; I suddenly liked how this foreshadows the rest of the poem; it is a hint that she's 'near' the stream, but also 'near' the stream, because danger is right there and she's about to do something perilous. I also went back and forth between 'fields of flowers' and 'fields of poppies', because flowers has better alliteration, but poppies is more specific; I erred on the side of specificity. I think it is usually better to err on the side of specificity, when given the choice. 

I also like the juxtaposition of the two darker images... the dead squirrel is something you cannot control, and you are trying to make sense of; it's already dead. The sore is something you are doing to yourself, and you are trying to figure out why. These seem to be two of the bigger 'trends' in the poetry I am attracted to: why did this happen, or why do I keep doing this? 

Finally, I am pleased that I'm doing these 'notes' sections. I argue all the time to my students that writers are very intentional about their choices for things in what they write. By showing my thought process 'in real time', I'm making the case that this is true.

April 7: Poem 7

When Davey Boy Smith

Threw the Hammer into the corner

And the Dynamite Kid 

Delivered a headbutt

Michael T. Desing Day 

was born.

It is here, yes today,

Michael T. Desing Day.
Huzzah and Hurray.

All the kids say, 

- I say that they say -

Today is the day.

Michael T. Desing Day.

***

But thirty-six years later

I see the drug abuse;

The way Dynamite 

broke his back

in an unplanned fall.

We didn't know if yet,

But his career was over.

And I know now

The Dynamite Kid

would kill a cigarette 

in a single drag 

before matches

And Davey Boy

once got milk 

injected in his ass

because he thought 

it was steroids.

And I

Doctor Michael T. Desing

am a collection of

scars and bruises

of losses and disappointments

of folly and fear.

As are we all.

As are we all.

We are not superheores.

None of us.

Our superheroes

are not superheroes either.

And today is the day.

Michael T. Desing Day.

Notes

Well, then. This is all a true story, by the way.

I remember so many images around Wrestlemania 2: April 7, 1986. I was fourteen, and pro wrestling was my world as much as comic books, GI Joe, and Star Wars were. They all eventually merged into Army Ants, which had a 12-issue storyline centered around my love of pro wrestling, becoming the first graphic novel - the first long work of any kind - I would finish. As I watch the match again this morning, as I do on every April 7, I feel both sad and nostalgic. Hence, the poem. I decided after that match that, since my birthday was the day after Christmas and I always felt like I missed out on something, that it was appropriate to have a random day in the calendar to celebrate 'me' - that was not so random after all. Here it is, April 7. 

It's Michael T. Desing day. 

April 3: Poem 3

It was during surgery
to scoop a tumor from my brain
that the archangel in robes of white
with bare arms and luminous head
carved into my cranium
with a mystic blade.

I saw him.

Revelation explains
servants of God 

have foreheads sealed.

So when the doctors tell me 
they can fill in that hole,
I politely decline.

Because I'd rather live in metaphors.

Notes:

I like free verse poetry, but I really wanted this one to have a more specific meter. I struggled with it for a while today, and this was the best I could get to. After yesterday's poem, I knew this moment had to be next. I would love a few more days with this, but the classic 'it is what it is' kicks in here.   

April 2: Poem 2

Sometimes

I look at the moon
and think
my grandfather looked at the same moon
and he 

broke dirt with a shovel
for a church that is still standing

(he came to me in a dream once

but it was not a dream)

and once walked through the plazas of Munich
sending my mom a postcard

written in a formal script

saying love, dad
like he wasn't sure how to say that

and I feel
a little better.

Notes

Not sure where this one came from. I sat down and started writing. Okay then. That got personal quick. 

April 1: Poem 1

In thinking of Ulysses
of some work of noble note yet to be done

I ponder over coffee 

and ready for final radiation.

Later this morning

I will ring a bell 

with an arm I couldn't lift 

forty days ago.

While something new awaits

my first steps forward.

I must go to it.

It will not come for me.

Pathways beckon.

To steward the school.

To craft the comic.

To tell the tale.

Some paths will be followed.

Others, as Frost forebodes, 

will be left behind.

So I sit at a crossroads.

And I listen.

Knowing.

The answer is not in the bell,

but in the echoes that will follow.

Notes:

The process of writing poetry in this way is pretty meditative. It's a 'next-level' form of journaling, I suppose. It forces me to take an honest status check of what I'm thinking and feeling right now, and put it on (digital) paper... and then release it to the wild, which is actually going to be the hardest part of this process, and which has already surprised me. I didn't know what I'd be writing about this morning, but it wasn't this. It also doesn't allow a lot of time for the revision process I usually use; I like to let things percolate for a day or two and then go back to them for a revision. I expect that some of these will beg for revision a few days later, and I don't know how to cross that bridge yet, or if it needs crossing. 

Time, as it does, will tell.