NCTE POEMS

So, thanks to a train delay and my refusal to grade papers even though they were in my bag all weekend, I now have some poems about my weekend at NCTE 2019. . . . . 

WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF AN ENGLISH TEACHER?

She has purple highlights in her hair
A tartan poncho over thick leather hips
She is white
freckled ginger in a lime green sweater
her slim waist sporting tan slacks and sensible heels
She is black
in her Medusa braids and Orioles T-shirt
He is Cheyenne nation
baseball cap on a brain so full of knowledge he
cannot help but be the tall lanky fellow
with the green canvas satchel
some kind of a cross between Fitzgerald and giraffe
They are legion
in their green hair and yellow slicker
and they make
you write
and she makes
you read
and he tells you to
revise
because the first draft is only raw ideas
but next drafts
are you thinking about what it means
to be human
because she, with her petite power suit
and her bleach blond pixie cut will challenge you
to go Beyond the Book
and he, with his tweed jacket and Cuban beret will make you
wait to claim your thesis
until you actually have something to say
and she is walking into the room all Goth-ed out in black
and tattoos and piercings and they
make you connect
Julius Caesar to an article in the New Yorker and
he tells you that
you need more reliable sources
because he can tell you might be tryin' to be lazy
but the
Shape of an English Teacher is chameleon
and transmorphic
because he corrects your grammar
and she says use your voice and
they don't care about your spelling except
to say that you should care
The Shape of an English Teacher is
author
activist
trail guide
coach
She will not call on you.
He always calls on you
They ask you to think
critically
to critically analyze
synthesize
The Shape of an English teacher knows you
because you poured a piece of yourself
into that poem
out in that journal
because she squeezed your hand before you had to give that speech
and he hugged you when that story won the contest
You didn't want to enter
but you did because
They said it was good
and she called you
a Writer
and he said you read so well because you know
The Shape of an English Teacher is
elusive
just like the shape of water
or of love.




THE UBER DRIVER WALKS IN THE RAIN THROUGH THE STREETS OF BALTIMORE

The concierge at the Hyatt asked, "Taxi, Ma'am?"
And she said, "No, Thank you. I'll walk."
But it's raining she realizes, so it seems ludicrous
Because she usually is the driver in the rain
picking up the train bound traveller
But she walks
Tiny purple suitcase wheeling on her side
and overladen grey backpack weighs down each step of the
mile and a half
through the city that someone once said was
a rat-infested terrible place yet
she only encounters friendly people
even the man in the crosswalk who asks for a quarter which
she barely can give him because she's
a teacher and an Uber driver who has no real money of her own
living off the company check for this trip
to a conference with other teachers and
she does feel tired of being dirt poor
which is hyperbole
But not really
 when you think about the debt that has loomed
for seven years because her husband was unemployed for a little too long
but it was true when the man on the platform at Metropark begged
"money, I need money"
She could not help but laugh,
"You and me both, buddy."
"Money, give me money" his Southeast Asian accent thick in his crooked tooth mouth
"Dude, you are asking the wrong person, I'm a teacher. I really don't have change to spare."
Besides his whiskey breath made the teetotaller inside her say
I am not paying for your next drink
but She asked him if he is hungry because
she was eating a granola bar and would give him the rest
as long as he was not allergic to peanuts, which she asks,
because she's a teacher
and he eats the rest of the granola bar even though that really is
kind of her dinner
but that is something she can share like the loose change
she does find in her pocket and gives to the friendly Baltimore man in the crosswalk on the rainy night
who asks if she has a quarter and she gives him 63 cents.
Hoping for a fare on the way home from Metropark
Because the family needs groceries
and the Teacher Uber Driver walks in the rain,
yes, because she wants to save more of the company money
so she can eat a nice culminating meal
but also because the rain and the walking and the
tap, tap, tap
of the purple suitcase wheels
gives her space and time and permission
to think or not to think
maybe just be
on those
shiny sidewalks at night in the city of charm.

Victoria and Harriet: A Love Story
Mother's Day 2019

I will never know how you really felt about one another.
I have only memories of snarky comments
About your smoking
About her distance
About your taste in clothes
About her irrational love of shoes and handbags
But what I do know
is that without her
there would be no you
there would be no me
there would be no daughters o' mine
one who you once both held in a picture
only weeks from her introduction
to this earth
you, with your goofy eyebrow side smile
she, not looking in the camera
but your shoulders almost touching
wearing complementary colors
with the little peanut human between you
human lineage of your lineage
I know she loved you
She fought to make a life for you as a single parent
in a day when that was just not done
I know you loved her
because you lost sleep when you thought she was unwell
I know I loved you both
Still love you
both
and miss you
Perhaps her independence and fire
While depriving you of a typical mother
While depriving us of a cookie-baking, cheek-pinching grandmother
Who instead of saying "Mangia, Mangia" said
"Have you been gaining weight?"
But that Chanel wrapped spitfire
Gave you the internal warmth that nursed our fevers
held our hands
sewed our costumes
loved us unconditionally
I hope reconciliation has happened in the spirit world
my mother and grandmother
for I will never really know how you felt about one another
but I know you loved me in your own way
so I could love my daughters in my own way
as they will love theirs
uniquely
part of a lineage
of loving
mothers.

SASEBO SHI

I had written this in a notebook as an exercise in tandem with my Creative Writing students right after Spring Break. I read it again today when I had them share some of their polished poems. I didn't even really remember writing it, that's how hard the muse was moving my pen those few days after returning from Japan.

SASEBO SHI

Walking through the arcade of Hiroshima's

Okonomiyaki district I am struck with

the sweet pang of remembrance of things past

our sweet first years of love

Began in a city in that same country

the flashing lights of pachinko parlors

The Mister Donuts sign marking the 

narrow stairs to my place of employment

The train station at the end of the arcade

marking the journey to yours

We went through the weeks together

though apart except for Friday

and Saturday nights when we prowled

the arcade starting first at the video store

Next to the movies or bowling alley

where we laughed at the dancing rabbit

Who told you that you sucked

at bowling, or got three strikes

in a row. Those days were 

filled with flashing lights and

Walking down a hill to a shopping

street and bar district where

our early dreams were made

and we sang songs together into the night

over beer and sake or hot cans from

vending machines. These are the 

images and textures conjured by the new 

shopping street, in a new century

where I walk next to a child 

born of the love first kindled in

Sasebo Shi.

An Ode To Lucy McBath

After being asked to prepare a poem for our school's Annual VDay Presentation, I was listening to Georgia Congresswoman Lucy McBath speak on The New Yorker Radio Hour and was awe-struck by this woman's poise and story. I knew my poem would be about her.

AN ODE TO LUCY McBATH by Leslie B. Patient

I sing an ode to the freshman

Congresswoman from Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District

Who lost her only son seven years ago

To gun violence

In a parked car at a Florida gas station

His music too loud

His looks too threatening

And in three and a half minutes

A fearful grown man who felt he had to

Stand his Ground
shot ten times into the car

of an unarmed seventeen-year-old whose music was too loud

I sing an ode to the murdered boy’s mother

Lucy McBath

Who made an appeal to the judge

Who held the life of her son’s murderer in the balance

“Do not seek the death penalty,” she said.

“I do not want his family to suffer as my family has suffered.”

“I will not bear the burden of playing God.”

“I believe in forgiveness.”

I sing an ode to Lucy McBath

Who campaigned for Congress on gun reform in a district full of hunters

Whose constituents heard her story and the Millenial vote resounded

We seek common sense

We seek communication over violence

Georgia's 6th District Congresswoman
Lucy McBath

We seek change

I sing an ode to Lucy McBath

A two-time breast cancer survivor and a grieving mother

Who said she wanted to look beyond her own tragedy

To represent all those suffering in her district

To listen to all her constituents

Black and white

Men and women

The healthy and the invalid

The elderly and the young

I sing an ode to Lucy McBath

Who is the face of a New America

Who recognizes the paradoxes of life

Who knows pain

Shanequa Gay's "La Pieta"

And doesn’t hide it

Who realizes the sanctity of life

But values choice.

Who wants gun reform

But upholds the Second Amendment

Who looks at life through a rational lens

But is not afraid to show emotion

Who knows real struggle

But uses her pain to inspire hope

She lives paradox, a mother with no earthly child

She embodies the suffering Madonna

Raising her dead son in her arms

A Pieta

For a new century

This mother in pain

Turns her tears into testimony

There is a reason Liberty and Justice

Take on the form of a woman

And now she sits in the congressional chamber

Among other mothers who

Know heartache

Other women who know the bitter taste

of oppression, injustice, disrespect, assault

But who believe in the power of the people

To look beyond the horizon

Women who know patience is an essential virtue

Women who know patience is the key to making lasting progress

She had the courage to campaign

She had the wits to win

And I have faith that Lucy McBath

With her sisters in White and Red and Blue

will transform a chamber

That has been an echoing cavern off inaction

Into a body of beating, living, mother’s hearts.

Short Story Contest 2019: Clarity On Spruce Knob

So, it's been a good long time that I just sat down and "wrote for fun". Thank you to NYC Midnight's contests, I took a "vacation day" all day and wrote this story from about 1pm to 11:53 pm. With a few breaks along the way, but not that many. Never really get them just the way I want them, but they are infinitely better out here in the open than staying in my brain. :)


ASSIGNMENT 61: Genre-Political Satire, Topic-Hygiene, Character-A Fortune Teller


The first Chief of Staff had made fun of her for, among other things, driving a “Dyke Car”, but Hannah was grateful for her Impreza’s excellent mileage and strong traction in this four-hour trek. Now she was just at the snowy base of Spruce Knob.
Old Bertie Bright had said it would “all clear up” if Hannah just “said her peace” and “went to her mountaintop”. “The Peace” having been said, Hannah wasn’t sure if Spruce Knob was “her” mountain. But as she pulled up the sleeve of her parka and then her pant leg, Hannah saw her smooth clear arms and legs, no blotches, no marks. So, clearly it was.

Hannah Sullivan Hudson noticed the first blemish in late November 2000 as assistant communications director in the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Hannah had sat for hours watching bug-eyed and stale-breathed Broward County officials holding ballots up to the buzzing fluorescent lights. In retrospect, of course, she could pinpoint the moment that first blotch formed, but at that time she was oblivious to the causes of her skin condition. Broward County’s rectangular shape was only an oddly square freckle on the back of her hand. Had she remained silent about an official pulling off the hanging chad in the more oddly shaped Osceola County, well, then, Hannah might have been suspicous sooner.
Hannah Sullivan Hudson, was an underling most of her time in Florida,though,that was before she had any clout and well before she ever met Berthelma Bright.

She had been poring over a map of North Dakota for several hours daily in those first few weeks of the new administration so when she saw the distinct formation of a red Missouri River on the inside of her right arm, she thought she was just seeing things. She scrubbed extra hard with her loofa at the faint thin lines, still revelling in the fact that she was living in D.C. now. Deputy White House Press Secretary, something her parents could really boast about. WVU had already contacted her about being Mountaineer Alumn of the year and she had only been on the job for a few weeks.
Hannah had issued a few statements about Dakota Access to some smaller news organization that day. Primarily the line was “the administration is looking into it.” After three days of a regimen of loofa and sugar scrubs, Hannah thought the lines had disappeared. That was until the day the Press Secretary had laryngitis and Hannah was called upon to brief the White House Press Corps. That was the day the President signed an executive order to complete the pipeline and scrap the environmental impact study. The first Chief of Staff, the one who ridiculed her car, gave Hannah the statement from the White House on a half-sheet of computer paper.
“Is this true?” Not that it had to be, but it needed to be close. The Chief of Staff’s response was “Do your job, honey.”
Hannah took a deep breath before approaching the podium that first time. She had watched the Press Secretary after the inauguration get skewered by reporters. She knew she was stronger than that “Pansy Boy’, as the President called him, after the Crowd-count fiasco. Hannah would never use that derogatory language about a colleague, but she did believe she had more grit and determination to deliver the President’s message.  Her steely composure, a by-product of growing up on the edges of Appalachia, gave Hannah the stature to unblinkingly issue the claim.
“The current administration is simply executing an order already set in motion by the previous administration. No further questions.”
The tributaries flared up so severely on Hannah’s arm that rather than take her usual vigorous mile power walk back to her apartment, Hannah went to Farrugut West rubbing the itchy skin through her blazer and waited for the train.  Hannah sat on the bench next to an elderly black woman who had the unique ability to appear both eccentric and unassuming in a bright purple wool coat and yellow cloche hat. Hannah reached into her handbag and took out some make-up wipes while slipping her right arm out of the blazer sleeve. The bright red Missouri River meandered down the length of her forearm like someone with a switchblade was slashing at her from the inside.
“Ooooh-wee. That sho’ looks bad.”
Hannah smiled and pushed out a nervous chuckle. “I think I might have thrown my blazer on with a red pen inside the sleeve or something.” The lines on Hannah’s arm seemed to brighten in a glowing pulse and she shot a look at the woman then noticed the bluish film of severe cataracts across the woman’s blinded eyes.
“Don’t say such things, sugar. It only makes it worse.” The old woman’s Caribbean lilt hung in the air as she rummaged through a leather duffle bag. Before a very confused Hannah could respond the train arrived. The woman stood up straight reaching out for Hannah’s shoulder feeling down her arm for Hannah’s hand then placed a small vile into Hannah’s palm holding Hannah’s hand until she entered the train.
“Put this on a washcloth and rub it in twice a day. But you gotta live in the light, honey. Don’t do the Devil’s bidding.”
The older woman stayed on the platform as the doors closed and Hannah watched the purple figure disappear, still feeling the warmth of the brown shriveled hand in hers. Hannah looked down at the small bottle in her hand. Bright purple and gold calligraphy adorned a lime green label, Berthelma Bright, Soothsayer of the Subway.

Hannah would have filed this bizarre occurence away into the annals of other strange people she’d met in public transport centers, the Hispanic man who used to flash everyone outside the Southwest terminal of Miami-Dade or the tall bearded man with the piccolo outside of 30th St. Station who Hannah used to give half a cheesesteak to every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when she was at Annenberg for grad school, but whatever the stuff was in the vial, after a week of twice daily cleanings, Hannah’s arm was back to normal. That is, until the Press Secretary’s “laryngitis” got more regular and Hannah was called upon to step in often enough that everyone knew she was the heir apparent to a soon-to-be-vacated throne.
Deputy Press Secretary Hannah Sullivan Hudson issued the statement about the firing of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“He was not doing a good job.”
The next day, Hannah Sullivan Hudson was the acting Press Secretary. And as her predecessor handed Hannah the keys to his former office, he said to Hannah, “Now you get to do the Devil’s bidding.”
The resonance of that pronouncement became lost in the excitement of parents finally celebrating their daughter. Hannah’s achievement stalled the endless matrimony questions that had been the topic of every holiday for the last ten years.
Two weeks later Hannah audibly screamed when she cleared the steam from the mirror in her bathroom, seeing a dark circle on her left butt cheek. Closer inspection with some awkward yoga positions and a magnifying mirror showed the blotch to be the undeniable red and white stripes and golden circle of stars of the FBI insignia.

Hannah started to take the Metro everywhere. She wanted to find that crazy woman with the cleansing solution. Luckily those first few weeks the blotches stayed in discreet locations. Right next to the FBI insignia a stupid polar bear on an iceberg started to form.
“The President has pulled out of the Paris Climate accord because it is not good for America.”
The Broward County freckle started to redarken on the back of her left hand,and a distinct Cuba was forming just beneath it.
“The President is dialing back relations with Cuba to make it clear to the communist regime that America will only support free and open democracies.”
She tried Farrugut East and West, Federal Triangle, Eastern Market. Hannah went as far as Chevy Chase and Alexandria searching the Metro platforms for that bright purple coat and yellow hat. Berthelma Bright or “Soothsayer of the Subway” had no presence on the Internet. Hannah thought she had some kind of lead when she found a scan on Weird D.C. of an article from a defunct District weekly called Hidden Government claiming a New Orlean Creole fortune teller who had been a housekeeper in the White House had frequented Daniel Ellsberg’s apartment only weeks before he leaked the Pentagon Papers. There was no additional commentary on the page.
The Press remained brutal, but Hannah had become an expert in the deflect and twist. She became deft with retorts like “that’s insulting” or “what a ridiculous claim”. The President invited her to speak directly with him, especially once the second Chief of Staff resigned. There had been a lot of turmoil and she was becoming a constant. She wished the President did not put his hand on her shoulders or back when they stood in photographs. She was not a fan of the creepy squeeze or rub. But she also was becoming increasingly alarmed when people stood too close to her. What if they could see the growing sleeve of unintended countries, states and organizations? Hannah had always known how to live with secrets, but they had never bubbled up to her skin before.
Hannah was becoming more desperate when she overheard one of her interns talking about a deep clean skin treatment she had recently gotten at a little spa in Northwest near Silver Springs.
“This Caribbean lady got every blackhead out of my nose. My face has never felt so smooth.”
“Was she kind of a cute little wrinkled old blind woman?”
“Um, no.” The intern squinted at Hannah. “She was a kind of tall Nubian princess.”
On Friday morning after categorically calling a respected Post reporter a blathering fool, revoking the credentials of a CNN reporter for his belligerent attitude, and openly questioning the motives of the Special Counsel, Hannah Sullivan Hudson felt a strange tingling in her forehead. Rushing to the restroom in the press wing, Hannah could see the very faint lines forming along her hairline. “Oh god,” she thought, “that’s Russia across my forehead.” Later that evening, in a frenzy, Hannah headed to Brightwood, at least she’d be able to get some good jerk chicken and oxtail if nothing else.
Coming up the steps of Georgia Ave-Petworth, Hannah’s heart was beating rapidly. She could feel the tingling down her ears. Siberia was already well formed on the crown of her head, though her brunette hair concealed most of it. What she was not going to be able to hide was Saudi Arabia coming in a sickly shade of green, as if she was holding a shiny broccoli head right under her chin the way children do with buttercups in the sun. The way she once did with a beautiful girl named Lindsey at summer camp.
“You must like butter.” Lindsey had held the flower under Hannah’s chin, their teenaged faces close enough to kiss in the warm July sun.
Hannah found herself running up New Hampshire Avenue into Rock Creek Cemetary and past the grave of Upton Sinclair. She had read his novel Dragon Teeth once. Something about Nazis and selling out to save a friend? Suddenly Hannah saw a purple flash. It was her!
“Hey!” Hannah’s voice sounded ragged. “Berthelma!!” But the old woman had vanished around the side of a mausoleum.
Hannah pulled back vines and brambles revealing a cold metal door. As she cautiously peered into the structure the smell of incense and a low chanting greeted her. Suddenly the chanting stopped.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Miss Hannah Sullivan Hudson.” The old woman, her back to the door, sat on the floor among velvet pillows stirring a small bubbling cauldron.
“Can I have more of that cleansing salve, please? They’re on my face now.”
“And your back, and your buttocks. You didn’t listen to Ol’ Bertie, did you?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Live in the light. And don’t do the Devil’s bidding.” The old woman stirred the cauldron vigorously.
“Are you saying the President is the Devil?”
“Why, no, child. Dishonesty is the Devil.”
“But my job . . .” Hannah knew there were consequences to any job. She knew media and communications would challenge her integrity, but she now longed for her simpler self, the self that once believed in human goodness. “Won’t your potion make it go away?”
“I just gave you wool wax, child, only your truth can give you clarity.” Bertie Bright held her hands over the cauldron. “I see you will say your peace. I see you will find your mountaintop and all will be clear.”

Hannah’s resistance to the truth remained steadfast for close to another week despite her encounter in the cemetery. But when North Korea and South Korea started to connect on the bridge of her nose, and no amount of Sephora foundation could cake it over, Hannah knew exactly what she had to do.
Hannah Sullivan Hudson let that fiery snit from CNN, Kaitlan Collins, ask the first question. Collins was a little startled by this courtesy, having only just been reinstated after a three-week revocation of her White House press pass for “impolite behavior.”
“I, um, oh . . .”
“Go ahead, Kaitlan. Ask your question.” Hannah was planning her escape route through the side doors.
“How does the President feel about the latest arrest of someone on his campaign?”
“He’s scared shitless.” The room went silent. “Next question.”
Major Garrett spoke up. She knew he would. “Did you just say, the President is ‘scared shitless’?” The room remained uncharacteristically silent.
“Yes. Yes, I did. Ok, look,  I’m going to keep it brief, people. The President is a bald-faced liar, his cabinet is filled with, at best, incompetent people, at worst the criminally manipulative. There were and are still shady dealings with the Russians. Um, there is no deal with North Korea. Justice Cavanaugh did not assault that woman but he is a raging alcoholic. The President is a misogynistic racist who believes it’s ok to pat attractive women on the buttocks and to call black people ‘monkeys’.  We good? Because I’ve got to bolt. Oh, one more thing. It’s important you understand the whole truth. You know, you all are responsible for this Presidency, right? All the free publicity you gave this man. He wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t given him the enormous platform. Let’s see, anything else? Oh, yeah, Al Gore won the vote in Florida, and I’m a raging lesbian. It’s been nice knowing you all. Wait, no, it hasn’t, you’ve treated me like shit. Hasta luego.”

Hannah breathed in the crisp cold air at the top of Spruce Knob then let out a long and resonant yell into the valley. When the echoes died down, she understood nothing and she understood everything.