The Poetry Of..
Rick Marlatt............................................................
No Gum in School
After you've taught long enough you start to put things into perspective
buzzwords like standards, norms, assessments, and modifications you
...............................................................................
overcame
in that education course, on the third floor-the one with that pretty blonde
whose coconut hair was always glacier-melt fresh-those words begin to
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melt away like minutes of day.
When they told you about efficient, effective management, positive learning
environments, rules, rubrics, routine procedures, those get lost too, causalities
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in fight against time.
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There is only so much time
you learn this after hearing unassuming voices say
.....
I can't be smart like he is
.......
wish I was pretty like she is
.........
wish my house was a mansion
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why can't I be pretty like them
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wish I could talk to girls
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wish I was a girl
.................
god-I am stupid like mom
...................
I wish I could walk
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it would be so much fun to walk,
...............................
you begin to recognize pettiness like a multicolor bruise.
So when a boy with freckles, fair hair sits across from you after school
his far away eyes glued to the hard-knock floor, lavender moons spin
by golden suns and crimson death dawns unleash scarlet meteors under
sleeves of familiar grey hoodie, there is a whole world revolving that no one
........................................................................................
ever sees.
He grimaces in anticipation of your diatribe lash on why we don't chew gum
in school, you forget about enforcement of consequences modeling of responsibility
...................................................................................
and you say
I'll have a stick of that.
Over Sandwiches
She
in her lavender dress that evokes
her sandy skin's purple pocks
like the blooming lilacs behind her
encourages him to eat his tomato.
He
in his mahogany flannel and russet
trousers poised like the oak cracks
walnuts barehanded avoids the tomato
by complementing on the snapdragons.
Tired bodies ready for soil have served
these clever minds faithfully and tended
this old garden with vigilant hands.
Her bony fingers hold it close so he can see
My lord have you ever seen
a potato chip this big?
Leaning in to her mused eyes he flicks
the tomato to where the rabbits will run
and like clockwork they quip in unison
Little things make it worth it.
She rests the chip beside her iced-tea
where it shimmers like sundown on
the burgundy tablecloth. And they go
on chewing in the dying light their
heads full of things that cannot be destroyed.
At the Stop Sign
Late morning sun ignites
on his perfectly bald head
that glistens with brilliance
like a little yellow planet.
He walks behind, led by
a chocolate lab's swerves
at the heels of the woman.
Her hair is short, probably
just had it done yesterday,
hands are incredibly small
like a doll's or the earth's.
They both wear sunglasses
which means I can't read
their eyes, neither can dog.
He says something under
his breath that must prod
the bones under her skin.
Brisk steps warp into hot
running strides that leave
man and dog on the wrong
side of a great crater filled
with misfired language,
woeful sighs, silences,
shrines of feeling smothered
in layers of hard years' rubble.
Befuddled, the lab tries at
first to keep pace but feels
the unfamiliar pull of
concession from behind
and waits with eager energy
for the next woozy tilt,
what unfathomable force
from such small, pitiful hands.
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