Hallway Haiku

A girl, one hand in
her boyfriend's hair, the other
clutching her cell phone.

Self-Portrait

West on Route 2 (excerpt)

The Writer

We write poems now,
our words messengers, carriers
of curious cargo.
I want to be the poem, read over
and over, steps of words,
fame woven with familiarity,
held on the lips, intimate
with the mouth, forming shapes
over and over, punctuated by “oh!”

Poem (Take two. It's really here this time.)

Rocks

I.

Solid, stable,
an anchor, a handhold
when the world
runs cold.
Stoic and quiet,
silent layers of
sedimentary secrets.
He stands tall above
my single-digit self,
his snowy peak unscalable,
the air’s thin up there.
Can I, will I ever
climb that high?
Seismic shifts of years
brought him—wore him—down.
Cracked and broken,
slipping away—not even
a rock stays.


II.

Hard, slick when wet,
sharp and pointed.
Careful where you fall,
and upon whom
you fall. Rock
on rock, plate tectonics,
her stubborn shale against my
yielding sandstone.
Wore me down, she
seemed unscarred, convecting
the cold through herself.


III.

Another rock, solid, dark.
Stifling pressure,
squeezing her darkness
into diamonds—
the jewels of her words,
strong, focused beams
reach into my corners, light
splitting through watery prisms,
into a spectrum, color
against stark, weeping walls,
deep within.

Trust, Heat

Trust, Heat


“Trust heat,”
my student’s poem
says. Trust, heat,
I think.
Trust and heat,
verbs and nouns,
actions and objects.
Why object?
Trust heat, let it
lead you, like a
tree turning toward the sun—
bearing fruit. Bear it
when it grows heavy
and your limbs know it—
let your muscles burn
while you think of the
sweet promise inside.

Light and heat from the
same source.
More emotional alchemy—
fear, anger, worry are
all drawn
into my soul’s strong wick.
Light seeking direction,
darkness to fill,
to illuminate.

Reignite the torch,
find your key,
let the shepherd
in your heart lead you—
a gentle nudge, a wet nose,
a familiar paw.

Ride Report, Tues. 5/12/09 (poetic version)

Lords of the big rings,
small-cog spinners, mid-pack winners,
fully kitted saints and sinners
in the church of the maxed-out heart,
whirling dervishes on a different plane--

Slicing the blossomed air
each forward surge a dare
drop the shoulders, hands
loose on the hooks--
hey, how's my form look?

Good move, I say aloud,
as someone grabs a wheel--three's a crowd--
two off the front, empty road rises ahead,
teamwork, an alliance unsaid.

Riding, surfing a swelling wave,
crawling out of the cave
of my mind into the
slanting dusk--
push on, perfect circles--
today, I must.

My alchemy machine,
stress and anger burn the best--
off the front now, in the
soft asphalt quiet, alone,
no chance for rest--

But no need! My speed
keeps me upright as we
hurtle into damp, sweet twilight.

It's not a bike, but a
fulcrum, a magical lever--
right now I'm immortal,
turn those cranks forever!

Ride Report, Tues. 5/12/09 (factual version)

Time: One hour, 51 minutes, 20 seconds.

Distance: 35.9 miles.

Average speed: 19.2 mph.

Maximum speed: 39.5 mph.

Poem

Drafts in the Room

Cloudy day in the classroom.
The sun’s inverse outside--
a first draft is a dirty window,
I say, and you must clean it.
Revision resistance, the myth
of the perfect first draft
rises, shrouded in this
mind-mist in my midst.

Revise or continue are the
options for today. Look
back or forward—
up to you.

Your first draft is
a candle in the room,
throwing feeble light.
Show us the carved wood,
the chandelier, the
shapes and sounds of
a living room--
bring in the torches, raise
the blinds and invite us into
all the rooms of your mind.

You enter a relationship
with your writing, I say—
think of friends, family, love—
not always easy.
Befriend your writing, offer it
a drink, a handshake, a hug,
a pat on the back, a place to rest,
to lay her head on your lap.
Let it ask you things—

take your time in replying,
but get it in by Monday.

Race Report: Johnny Cake Lane Series, Race 1

Spring is here. Time for all of us cyclists to put on our game faces, take our bikes off the trainers, and feel the sharp sting of the wind as it comes across the fields of beautiful Greene County. It's race time!

I pull into the parking lot at the school, and am greeted by bikes and riders milling about, along with perpetually grumpy USCF commissaires and assorted family members/friends/significant others who have been drafted into supporting roles.

I suit up and get the bike ready, as I surreptitiously eye up the other riders. I head out to the course, and pedal a lap the wrong way to recon the course. I know these roads. Small rises, mostly flat, gaping potholes helpfully marked by orange spray paint.

Just a bit of nerves now. I ease into the group at the start, glance around, see super-fit riders, collegiate team kits and thousands of dollars of bike tech. Whoops, the pro/cat 1-3 field. I sneak out, back to the "C" group, cat 5s and first-timers. OK, that's better. I recognize a couple riders, and try to guess at the abilities, style and potential dangers of others.

We ease out onto the course for a neutral start. One of my Tuesday-night buds, Dan, is driving the pace car for our group. "I'll look for you in the mirror," he says. Cool. I make small talk with other riders as we roll out. "Stay loose," I say to everyone and no one. It sounds corny, but I like it when other guys say that. And, considering my only experience in a pack recently was the previous night's critical-mass ride, it's good for me to hear it, too.

Lap one is thankfully uneventful. Small accelerations that I can mark, no problem. Little rises, some wobbly riders. I'm at fifth wheel on the back side of the course, in the catbird seat. This lasts for all of 20 seconds before the amorphous blob of the peloton shifts, and I'm ten more places back, boxed in along the road's edge. Don't crash, stay loose, I say to myself. OK.

Got this crazy idea to attack, try a solo breakaway. Never have had the chance. My usual M.O. in races is to hang on for dear life to the wheels in front of me. I feel good, heart rate's decent, and I want out of this group. There's a nervous energy that could lead to shoulders--or worse, wheels--touching. OK, I think, end of the first lap.

Mid-pack, I click up three gears, swing out so that I'm right on the double-yellow, rise out of the saddle, and step on the gas. "Who's going with me?" I yell, as much to my surprise as anyone's. We'll see what happens. I hazard a glance back--no chasers yet. Come on, guys, I'm your rabbit. Not that I want to get caught, but I can't stay out here alone for two laps. Heart rate's redlining, and I'm feeling great. I'm gaining on Dan in the pace car. You see me now? I think. Wow, what a rush.

This rabbit's getting tired. Riders behind me are stretched out, but closing on me. I may be a sacrificial rabbit, but my move woke up the pack.

The rabbit metaphor deflates as my heart-rate monitor holds steady at 171 while my speed drops. Now I'm a piece of celery, going through the Cuisinart of the peloton. Shredded--pureed, even--and spit out the back. Whoa, I think. Were we all going that fast before? No, the pace has picked up.

I hook up with a few other guys on the back side of the course, and we work together, however raggedly. Do these guys think they have a better chance riding me off their wheels? Our numbers thin, until it's just one other rider with me. The main field is way out of sight. We pass some dropped B group riders. We're working together, but it's still competition--particularly on those small rises.

One kilometer to go. He's on my wheel, no intentions of coming around. We're looking at a sprint for, what, 20th place? Game on. I try to ride him off my wheel, but it only works momentarily, and he shoots by. I let him go.

This is a very low-budget race, with guaranteed results for the top five finishers only. I have no idea where I finished. In the pass/fail scoring of my mind, I call it a pass. Hey, a solo breakaway. One or two minutes of... glory? Pain? Surprise? A bit of all of those? Pass.

Tragicomedy, Act 4 out of 5

Forget basketball. Ask anyone in this building--child or adult--and they'll tell you the true March Madness is going on within these walls.

March. What other month commands in such strident fashion? I mean, please. "May" is much more gentle. May I? But it's not here yet.

We've been teaching full weeks since the end of February break. That conference day we were supposed to have last Friday? Well, thanks to that ice storm a while back, it was a regular school day. Kids and teachers crankier than usual. Mostly--I'll get to that in a minute.

The dark clouds hovering over the faculty room have taken on a particularly bruised, angry hue recently. The rants are familiar: students with poor attendance/word choice/fashion sense/grooming habits/sentence structure, etc. Parents who don't care or--worse--actively enable behavior that works against us. Administrators who clearly don't understand What It Is That We Do. Deadlines. Piles of papers.

And, of course, this is a good time for everyone to get their schedules for next year. I'm teaching a level I've never taught before, and I'm doing another course I seem to get every few years or so, thus preventing me from establishing any kind of rhythm. (Those who are not teachers will vouch that such changes keep me fresh.)

Cranky. Cranky. Cranky.

Yes, I said to my colleague. But predictable. So predictable. How would the review go? The cast obviously knows their parts inside and out, and all deliver their lines with passion and verve, but the plot is a bit hackneyed, reducing the characters to flat stereotypes: the teacher martyr, the spoiled sophomore princess, the boy who throws worms and stuff, the text-addled junior with her hands constantly in her purse or her lap, the barking administrator.

Yawn. There's something better nearby... There's life outside these walls, even in that courtyard just outside my classroom window, where things actually grow. The grass will soon be lush and green, and gentle breezes will surely, um, stir the darling buds of... May. (Forgive me. I've read that sonnet too many times.)

See the humor in it, I enthused to my patient colleague. The deus ex machina, even. Invisible strings are tugging at us. We ARE reading scripts, and this is a restless falling action, hopefully leading to some sort of cathartic denouement: papers graded, boards washed clean, exams bundled neatly, students reduced to GPAs and class rank. Me, caught up for the first time all year. Yes, but we are stronger than those strings.

We can improvise. We must.

Another trusted colleague and I fall back on our favorite rhetorical question that gets us out of this rank-and-file March: "What's really important?" Well, it sure isn't the duct tape on the faculty room carpet. It's most definitely not the Regents exam. And no way is it the faculty meeting agenda.

March is gone. March on? Nah. Amble, sidle, sashay, and remember what's really important.

Poem

Beholden


Beauty is in the eye of the beholden
A bountiful burden that lightens
Silence is silver, but speech is golden
Fan the fire ‘til it brightens
We willfully carry each other
A musical voice, a dimpled smile
New and old to one another
Sinuous, twisted roads of years and miles
Show your dark places, I’ll show mine
Trust, jump, be honest and true
Your hands at the base of my spine,
We’ll find the words our hands just knew
The sweet touch of laughter
Lightens, enlightens ‘til hereafter.