I spit in the face of coherency in writing! I am a rebel!

If I wanted to, I could have the hugest penis you have ever laid eyes on. It could be gigantic.Not a day goes by when I don’t get an offer to enlarge it.Why would you want an enormous six foot King Kong ding dong? I would not. This is not only because I am five feet tall. It’s also because I don’t like to carry things, and it would slow me down. I’m speedy fast, like a hyper-caffeinated mosquito.

You know that poet Shelley? He was quite the progressive dude. At eighteen he was kicked out of Oxford for writing a paper called “The Necessity of Atheism”. He was also a champion of free love. All that in the 1800’s.

Would that I could

My penis much enlargèd

Would the ladies gamely flock

to see my engorgèd cock

and take into stock

such pleasures to unlock

even the most clenchèd personality?

Nay, such posh and pish

They would still laugh at my name, Byshhe

But, by heavens, when perchance they fish

In my pants, no greater dish,

to tempt them into murky immorality.

And when one is beset

By women all preset

to feast on a large, well-doughed baguette

With chivalry most grand I abet;

What compliments more than a seafood specialty?

If only I had sturgeon rather than anchovy

They’d treat me like a trophy

And I like Neptune in a pool

Couldst hook not one fish, but the whole school.

If you would like a real poem, here’s a great one by Sherman Alexie:

http://www.theawl.com/2012/05/a-poem-by-sherman-alexie

Damn, he’s good. I am reading a poetry anthology, and so many of the selections are just blowing me away. I used to hate poetry, because what the hell was it talking about anyway? Now I realize that there is so much out there to love, and I am learning how to appreciate all kinds of diverse people and perspectives. I even know some poets, and I think they are great. Inspiring, I tell you!

I watched documentaries all night instead of doing my grading, but still, I’m no smarter.

The other day one of my colleagues burst into the classroom. Apropos of zero, she said, “Yeah, so I had morning sex, and now I’m all frazzled.”

I said, “Well congratulations! That’s terrific! Good for you! Why are you frazzled?”

Another teacher said, “Oh my gawd! You’ve got to be kidding! Where did you find the time? Weren’t you afraid the kids would walk in?”

The third teacher was the oldest in the group. She has been married for forty-one years. “Whaddaya want,” she asked without looking up from her papers. “A parade?”

The night before last  I had terrible nightmares. I kept waking upset from the dreams, but also that those dreams had come from my head. Who knew I was deranged and scary? Getting to know the real me is such a profound disappointment. Anyway, last night there was redemption, because all night long, I was building a meaningful dream relationship with John Stamos, and now I think I’m fallin’ for him – HARD! I mean, he was cool when he was Uncle Jesse and all, but when you really get to know him, he’s even better! I think this time it might be for reals, yo! I hope I see him tonight.

Suddenly I feel like going to bed right this very second. I leave you with a poem I wrote about one of those inspiring poets I know.

Advice of the Poet Laureate

The advice of the Poet Laureate on reading in front of others:

If you get nervous, read more loudly. The louder your voice, the less it quivers. You have something to say. It is important and deserves to be heard. Remember that.

And…

No matter how slowly you think you are reading, read more slowly. People need time and space to understand what you are saying. They need to hang on your words as they float into the air, pulling your images down onto their brains where they can examine them closely. People don’t get it if you move too fast.

And…

Don’t be afraid! Reading your words, connecting others to your ideas, sharing your life – that’s the beauty of poetry! This is the fun part!

Later she perused the buffet at the reception. When she found a crystal bowl of fruit, her eyes lit up, and she came back to the table with a perfect little Clementine, cupped in her palm like the sun in a cloud.

The Poet Laureate took a spray bottle of sanitizer from her purse and doused the orange peel of the Clementine.  I imagined the rosy skin bruising, yellow, green and purple.

She noticed me staring, pupils like the dot that underscores the question mark.

“I’m going through chemo,” she said quickly. “Can’t have fresh fruit. There might be bacteria, pesticides….this is ok, though. The Clementine is safe in its skin.”

I had to lean in to hear her. I almost missed it.

I sent this to a friend who is really, really angry. I don’t know if it will help, but it can’t hurt, right?

If you screamed for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

Eight years, seven months and six days of my life. Filled with a rage so great it was an assault, a tsunami that roiled and churned, gaining power and height, threatening to drown us all. Eight years of hating, an acid volcano, spewing a gas so toxic it created a force field that repelled others from me; only the masochistic, vapid, or damaged sniffed my sulphuric halo, then continued to an approach.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

What you did was unforgivable. You lured me in like a firefly to a jar and then waited for the light to go out. You set traps. You stole from me – my money, my time, my hope, my pride. You bore false witness and turned others against me. You hit me when I was down. You shoved bamboo under my fingernails, waterboarded me, deprived me of food, water, sleep. You made me stand in discomfort for hours in the too cold or too hot, the atmosphere of your pleasure. You hurt me. You broke me. You did this to me. It was you. You,You,You. Bang, bang, bang.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

I hate you so much that I am a snake, poised and ready, always ready, to sink my fangs in and release, to inject, ejaculate, emit, imbue, to impregnate my poison vitriol, my bitter wrath, my pain-soaked agony into your pink-fleshed, chubby-cheeked world, your possibilities, your unsuspecting, curled-up, thumb-sucking dreams.

Pearls melt in vinegar.

For eight years, seven months, and six days, I have cradled you, my hatred, spite and need for vengeance, nested in a steel-wool cloud, encapsulated in titanium, warmed by my fury and cooled by my loneliness, in a sealed chamber of my heart. My life force has pooled amniotically behind you, feeding you, keeping you strong, while slowly, slowly, I have begun to wither and shrink. First, it was almost undetectable; my fingernails turned brittle and yellowed, my hair, follicle by follicle, grayed. The winds of rage etched lines between my brows, at the corners of my mouth, on the plane of my forehead, as surely as waters carve the mountains and limestone shifts over time to swallow cities. My stomach is clawed from within. I have no appetite and I cannot sleep. My colors have muddied to gray, and when I close my eyes, I hear a thin, whining scream. My own, or just time, crying at its own passing?

A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.

Nine long days of running blind, frantic, unable to blink, taste, kiss, smile, breathe in, see the sky. Nine long days of surviving by sheer will, because you have lost the sense to realize that enough is enough. Nine days is nothing compared to eight years.

The Victorian Timetable of Family Mourning sets the appropriate time for grieving a husband at two to three years. Wives get three months.

Who am I when I am by myself? An appendage chewed off and left behind to escape a trap? Leftovers in Tupperware, sighing lovingly when released, unsealed, happy to be reheated and enjoyed again, content to know I make do, happy to be consumed in a pinch, so easy? Am I to carry the flame, the torch of discontent, high over my head, a beacon for the disgruntled, a glow that tells the bitter, the mutilated, the burned that I am one of them, boldly and forever? Must I scream? Must I cry? For how long?

Queen Victoria wore black for her beloved Albert from his death in 1861 for forty years, until she died.

Winston Churchill’s last words were, “Oh, I’m so bored with it all.” Living a non-life, picking a scab until gangrene sets in, the act of slowly dying…so boring.

Flies hum in the key of F.

There is something lovely about being very quiet and still, about digging down, past “what has happened” and beneath “what is”, beyond “what will become of me” and “what if things had been different”, and finally, after so much digging, of becoming tired, exhausted even, and sitting  in the shade,  back against the smooth skin of tree whose leaves are swaying gently in a delicate breeze, sipping the subconscious, almost slipping into a well-earned reverie. And right before you remember to hold on to what keeps you awake, you hear something, a soft sound, like waves in the distance or the stars pulsating. It’s probably a tree sighing as it catches the sun to shield you from its rays. In that moment the symphony of the universe tunes up, and everyone, everything, leans into an instrument and breathes, inhaling the hum, the eternal chord that binds us together, sings to us why we go on, what is important, and who we really are, and exhales harmony. We are all alone, and we are all together.

“I am” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

“I am” is the longest, most complicated story I will ever read.

Every year, right before, during, or after my birthday, I freak out. I don’t know why. All is going well, but because another great year is in store, I have to deaden my joy by making up things to fret about and picking scabs guaranteed to bleed. It’s my way.

This year I’m upset because people are not nice and they are stupid. Why doesn’t anyone wave “thank you” when you let them in your lane? Why do people do things in the name of God or the preservation of religion that go against all that is holy and sacred? Why are there so many tv shows that are popular that actually destroy brain cells as you watch? What kind of a fool would audition to be on a show called “Naked and Afraid”? Of course nobody will find love on “The Bachelor”! And why do we always have to be right or have the last word? Why do we feel like just because we can, we are justified in doing? What good can possibly come from trying crystal meth? How can you not think that flossing is a good idea – you’ve seen the crud that comes out of your mouth, right? Why would you eat the shit you are stuffing in your face – it’s not even made out of food!

Why don’t dogs clean up their own poo? What am I? Your doo doo slave? Why do my toenails look purple in the shower? Do I have to get old? How come teenagers can’t understand how bitchy that smirk on their faces looks? Why do I always forget to write it down when I think of it? Why do we say such mean things to people we don’t want to hurt, ever? How come one side of the Qtip is a fluffy earwax pillow, and the other side is just a pokey stick with a comb over? How is it possible that a plane the size of a neighborhood vanishes without a trace?

I’m mad at myself. “Shut yer piehole, why don’tcha?” I think. Why do I always fall into the same patterns? Aren’t I ever going to evolve? When will I learn? And why am I so hard on myself? I know I’m good enough, smart enough, blah, blah, blah…why do I have to wake up in the night to think about all of the ways I could fail, or am failing, or will fail? Have I always thought that I wasn’t quite good enough, even though I know that if I was my friend, I’d like think I was a real swell fella? I like people much more asshole-y and loserish than me, so what the hell is that all about? Why would I be kinder and more forgiving to fictional friends than I would be to my real life self? And why do I procrastinate? I hate that I make double the work for myself EVERY SINGLE TIME, because I am so unbelievably lazy, and more than that, so ass-stubborn that I refuse to do what I know I have to do, because I don’t like it when I tell myself what to do? That is some Grade-A neurosis, I tell you what. Why do I do bad things (right now, as we speak, I’m doing something bad. I am.) Also, I’m not doing my grades, which are due and have been due, and I knew it and I still didn’t even start them, on account of I didn’t want to, so instead I bought a bunch of books that I’ll never have time to read because I’m always behind and feel guilty about reading when I should be grading. And I didn’t need any books because I still haven’t finished the one I’m reading, or even Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, which I’ve been reading for at least three years. Why can’t I read? I’m a fockin’ eejit.(That’s how my old friend Johnny McGreavy from Kilkenny used to say “fucking idiot” when he was drunk.)

I’m all upset about Ukraine and Venezuala and North Korea and the entire Middle East. All across the country people are rejecting science in favor of bullshit. Ted Nugent is an elder statesman in my state. People are hungry and cold and sad. I’m worried about some of the young kids I know – they have such tough roads ahead of them. How do any of us make it? I heard this horrible news story on the BBC when I couldn’t sleep – why can’t I sleep?- about a man so filled with hate, so damaged, that he proudly described how he participated in a mob that beat a man to death, then shot him, then decapitated him, then burned his body and then – I hate to be the one to tell you; it’s so horrible- ate his leg. It was two in the afternoon and this guy was bragging in broken English about he was eating his enemy. As Johnny would say, “Jay-zuss”. That is messed up.

There’s more, but that’s enough.

At about this time every year, I’m a basket case. It’s weird, because normally I’m so happy and even-keeled. I have absolutely everything going for me; there’s nothing that’s not going really well. In fact, the sun is setting and it’s gorgeous, like raspberry jam spread across a purple and indigo sky. Tomorrow it will be Spring here, 70 degrees. I will plant a garden and things will grow, and I’ll be happy whenever I eat them. I am good to nature, and nature is good to me. My mom and sister are having a special lunch for me in the backyard, and I got to invite some of my friends (sorry if you didn’t make the cut), and they will probably bring me presents and tell me I’m pretty. Soon I’ll be done with my grading and my tv will be fixed – that’s another thing- how come everyone else just loves their U-Verse and mine keeps breaking down?- and all will be right with the world.

In fact, I feel a little better already.

I just love my blog! As soon as I’m safely out of my funk, I will look back on this and feel petty – and then I will delete it forever. Future generations will never have to know how I really am, their perfect vision going unmarred into eternity. So, shhhh, gentle reader. This ugly freak out will be our little secret. Go buy some book you won’t read for yourself in my honor, and when you floss tonight, with each plaque-y chunk that you excavate, know that I approve.

I’m not an angry person. I sing in the shower and like long walks on the beach. However, every once in awhile, or maybe a couple of times in the average day, something strikes may as ridiculous and egregious, and I feel I have to comment.Loudly.

Lots of times the things I care deeply about are important. I’m worried about the Ukraine and North Korea and Venezuela.I care about friends, family and strangers. I’m researching fraking (fracking? frakking? At least I’m researching how to spell fracking…) and how to save water. I’m involved in local, state and national politics (I mean, I vote, right?) Seriously, I want you to believe I’m an intelligent, engaged person. I listen to the BBC, for Chrissakes!

Anyway, despite all of this, every now and again someone will say something in passing, an aside, an innocuous little observation, and it will just PISS ME OFF. I don’t know why. I’m not proud of it. But also, I like to hear myself talk. Or, you know, read what I have written. And it is my blog, which means I can start sentences with conjunctions or post anything I want. So there. I don’t have to justify myself to you! Here is an essay regarding my irritation vis a vis a certain feminine shade… Enjoy!

Embrace Your Inner Pink

From the moment they gush into the white light of existence, writhing goo covered in incarnadine chunks of their mothers, their fontanelles pulsing a blue tattoo, baby girls are given the color pink. It is their birthright.  Of course, many babies are pink, but it is not the color for boys; to swaddle a male child in a fluffy pink blanket would be at best confusing, at worst offensive. There are lots of little girls who are never pink. They grow up amber or coffee, sepia or gold, copper or earth, but we don’t care about those girl babies. They are hardly worth mentioning. Pink is what we want our girls to be.

The hue of adorable piglets, pinkness squirms and frolics in hay and clover. Their coloring lets us forget piglets will morph into hogs, sows or boars. We don’t like them as much then, and we can’t make silk purses from their ears. No matter how much lipstick we slather on them, they are still pigs. When they lose their pink, they become filthy and insatiable. We do like them when they turn pink again, as ham or bacon. Pigs, and pink, are a highly consumable commodity.

It is the color of cotton candy, sticky sugar spun, and is barely opaque, like a fairy’s wing. Anyway, there are no fairies. Cotton candy is light, sweet and air. It has no substance and zero nutritional value. It can hurt your teeth and make you sick. Pepto Bismol is pink, too.

Pink is passion sublimated, lust’s crimson without teeth, nails or growls. Pink feels fine, flat on its back, and, anyway, it will be over soon.

The nipples and labia of the Playmates are airbrushed pink as a bunny’s nose. They will only stay that color for a little while; pages yellow and become smudged and stained. By the time aureolas and vaginas find their true colors and deepen to coral, brown, plum and fog, nobody is interested in them, or that to which they are attached. Hardly worth mentioning.

Pink is the rosy dawn of embarrassment and shame, the first blush of insecurity.

The new pink is hot and sassy, clamoring for attention, screaming, “Look at me! Can you see me? Don’t I stand out well against zebra print? I’m wild! Do I have your attention? Hey! Watch me! Look what I can do!”  The new pink is too loud. It’s a fuschia fussilade. It tries too hard. You see it a lot in teenagers’ bows, on satin bedazzled hearts that barely cover a stripper’s twat, and on the bifocaled readers old ladies wear around their necks.

On Valentine’s Day, all the candy is pink, shiny wrappers over chemical coloring and corn syrup. No food in nature is pink, is it? There’s dragon fruit, but that’s too ethnic. Hardly worth mentioning.

Pink is the color of JonBenet’s pouty kiss and breast cancer. It’s the dick of a dog and the petal that hides a thorn, the eye of the albino and bubble gum spat on the sidewalk. It’s the delicate inside of the shell you don’t notice until it is broken. It’s what we give our women, their birthright.

And now it’s a concept. Yesterday I was told to “embrace my inner pinkness.”  My inner pinkness. What the hell! Pink is a shitty color to have to drag around. It is weak, muted, infantile and unnatural. I prefer to conceptualize something less abstract – my “inner penis”; not so much a man’s organ, but more of an ideal of strength and power, a battering ram against sweet softness, compliance and complacency. It’s what allows women to stand solid, righteously erect, sniffing out opportunities covered and concealed. It turns us magenta. It is that within us that says, “I want,” and  “I deserve,”  and “I will have.” It quivers with possibilities and puffs purple, red and blue with hope. My inner penis tells me to try new things and to see beauty in places my eyes might ignore. It paints pinks with pearly whites, a glistening silver lining that says, “I’ve been here! Remember me!” It makes me beat my chest with pride and joy, swagger when I walk, to forgive my trespasses and failed experiments. We all have an inner penis… but girls aren’t allowed to talk about theirs. Instead we try to make meals out of frosting, and Siddhartha out of Cinderella.

I am vulnerable and childlike, delicate and sometimes brazen. I recognize the part of me that is pink. I even see its beauty, charm and poignancy. But I won’t embrace it. It’s not all a woman is – it’s only the tip of the nipple.

Whew! I feel better! Have a great week, and for the sake of your health, chill out, wouldja?