A long time ago, a tradition of writing an acrostic poem for every student I've ever taught was initiated (madman emptying the ocean with a fork). This year, I used the NWP Urban Sites Network field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago as my inspiration for the poems. With the students in mind, the literature we read in my backpack, and the art pieces we were asked to explore on the field trip, I etched many of these acrostics. Although too expansive for this post, in the presentation I made for my students, I also shared the artwork that inspired the writing. I post this as evidence that the Writing Marathon was a success! And here's to the last day of National Poetry Month.
i.
K nock knock. Whose there?
i don’t know. Canoe? Canoe
Who?
m an, Canoe help me with my homework? Pretty
b ad, huh? Let’s try
another. Knock Knock. Whose there?
e tch. Etch hoo? God bless
you.
r ight. This is a lot of
fun. Woot Woot. Crandall,
y ou are an absolute riot.
Yucca Yucca.
Bet you have another one,
don’t ya? Knock Knock. Whose there?
a venue. Avenue who? Avenue
knocked on this door before? Yep,
i have a whole pile of them.
Knock knock. Whose there?
l ettuce. Lettuce who?
Lettuce get out
e arly today cuz these jokes
aren’t funny. Knock Knock. Whose there?
y a. Ya who. Wow, you really
are excited to see me.
ii.
D etermination. Conviction.
Tenacity.
a ssurance. Doggedness.
Constancy.
m indfulness. Spunk.
Certainty.
i ndependence. Spine.
e nergy. Backbone. Guts.
Obstinacy.
n erve. Dedication. Grit.
Pertinacity.
Q uick-wit. Humor.
Elasticity.
u nderstanding. Drive.
Inevitability.
i am determined to live with
integrity.
n irvana. Utopia. Heaven.
Universality.
n ow is the best time to
appreciate seduity.
iii.
A nd Gautama Buddha said,
“Peace comes from within. Do
n ot seek it without.” In
other words, our
d irectives arrive from mind
and not the way language shouts.
r eal peace requires the
transformation of
e xternal greed into
spiritual gratitude – to find the
w hatever in all that is
great. Add an ‘o’ to God and you have good.
S o, I stood once on a hill
in Ireland, overlooking
t he Bay of Dingle. It was
overcast and I
e ven saw a thunderstorm out
to sea. The Irish
w ind waddled the green
grass and cattle huddled
a long the stoned pastures
and lapping waves. Then the
r ainbow appeared as if i
was a leprechaun. i held her hand.
t he universe was calm. I
thought to myself, “so am i.”
iv.
A nother metaphor my
grandmother left me with was the
b utterfly. I’ve never
understood, exactly, why
b ut the metamorphosis of
Bry has take many
y ears upon a lilypad to
understand.
T heir are pillars of
caterpillars
e verywhere, but Stripe and
Yellow needed to
r each inside. Change, I
suppose, is swallowing personal pride and
r emembering the climb isn’t
always the answer -
e verything evolves at
exactly the right time. The
s ecret is to be patient and
to trust our wings.
v.
A nd then there are
b eaches, the way each
season reaches to
b uild a climax of something
larger than ourselves.
y ou + me = community.
Together, we can see that we are a
B raided bunch with a hunch
that there’s meaning to the
r andom serendipity of being
a squad -
e very troupe begins as a
group, a posse, who somewhat
n eurotically, must find
meaning from it all.
n ext winter, next summer,
next spring, next fall,
a rrives nature’s reminder
that we are a team…
n ext year, to one another,
we’ll only be a dream of what we once were.
vi.
E merson said, “For every
m inute you spend angry, you
lose 60 seconds of happiness.”
m an, that leaves many of us
in
a mess of wondering about the
nature of bliss and love.
J ust as we think we ‘get
it’ -
u nconditionally at a place
where we don’t regret it -
t he universe throws us dark
clouds.
r eal love, though, is a
pilgrimage with conditions, where
o nward we must overcome
inhibitions -
w hen seriously we must give
way to contemplations - that he,
s he, they can complete us
with personal revelations – yes, those
k id-like crushes and
admirations – that
i ntimately make us feel
whole. Elephant Shoe is always good
for the soul.
vii.
S eahorse. That was the name
she gave me as we
h eld hands in Tintagel and
a fter I dubbed her Diana,
the Sea Goddess. I was the
n erd (they called me
Eeyore, Fat Ass, dufus,
a nd Charlie Brown). I
hadn’t quite
L earned the art of unnaming
y et (that sticks and stones
break your bones &
n ames get etched in skin
forever). She’s a writer now, in
c alifornia and married to some
white dude.
h e could never be me,
though…not this Frog.
viii.
A rnold simply wanted more –
n ot to ignore the rowdier
ways of the reservation, but to tap his
m editation of spirit,
culture, & success…
o h, but what a mess comes
from the countering culture –
l ess we hang on to our foundational
roots.
T he trick is to stay in
cohorts of the Great Whatever,
a nd whenever or wherever or
however the
b oots travel (or shoelaces
unravel)
a lways stay true to your
“you” –
s he needs to do as only
s he can do, and he must
accrue,
u ltimately, what he can
accrue – playing with the
m agic and this whacky
rendezvous we call life.
ix.
E very once and a while I
feel her –
v ivian Bearing’s blur of
intellectual dust –
a nother character I learn
to trust
n estled behind the curtain,
but still upon the stage:
K nowledge, questions,
serenity, &
r age that every sage must
face at the end.
i put her down, but she was
ready to go – the
c ompanion ran away from
home, to the shades of the cave, the pain –
k rypnonite, Superman? With youth in Asia, there can only be the
rain.
x.
J ust where I think I’m
a winner, I fail again, a
loser
c ompletely incompetent with
my inabilities and competence
o lympic moron of confidence
b ouncing about in the
circumstances of the game.
K ingston & Alexie,
White boys feel lame at times, too –
n ot maggots in the rice,
but like albino doo-doo
o n the souls/soles of every
giant
s tep for mankind – in
t he pump and grind of
survival…
m an vs. self, man vs. man,
man vs. the universe
a nd not one of us with the
ability to rehearse for the game.
n ah, it’s okay to be lame
at times, too – makes the win taste better.
xi.
J ust because i
o nly live once, and just
because i
have a hunch, that
nestled behind the hours i
crunch,
Laughter lives and
pernicious poems punch
o vations, overtures, and
opportunities launch
n ext to the others who
choose to serve a bunch &
g ive of themselves and
receiving just as much – that is how to
o wn internal joy all the
way.
xii.
S h*t.
t hat is just f$%kin
re-d*ckulous
e ven that fat f#$k knows
better, and he’s a loser
v !gina-faced wanna-be who
e xistentially F#$ked up in
the complexity of his own stupidity.
P r#ck. G#@dam# A##hole,
imbecility,
e lephant-turd sphincter
with no humility
n ymphomaniac, lying
F$ckhead who drinks his own pee,
n ecrophiliac douche bag,
effing hung like a flee –
a h, #$#@, snap, are you talking about me?
xiii.
C aution, our stories are
told by scars,
h istories of treadmills,
dazed by stars & bruises
r un-ins with the law (and
bikes), the way some are given throat cancer.
s um of my wounds –
t he total of all my
i nsecure moons and
a chievements….
n ot a bastard with
grandchildren,
W elder of many mistakes,
but
a son of a Butch doing what it takes to find
l aughter, wit, humor, &
l ove, friendship, hope,
integrity
a nd trust in the above.
c aput inter nubilia condo, Virgil,
e ach of us hides our heads,
at times, within the clouds.
xiv
Since we’re talking about
story and the glory of
h ow we explore, see, the
complexity of our diversity
a nd the simplicity of
global camaraderie, this
h armony, i found
satisfaction while looking at art –
i nstinctively insighted i began
to see, to start
d eveloping how it is that
cultural hearts get
J uxtaposed by the muscles
that cause us rifts and fists – to
a sk subtle questions about
what puts us at risk of
f inding answers that have
the potential to whisk us away.
r elief is when we recognize
the pastiche & display beyond the historical star.
i ndividualizing
philosophical Ubuntu, that is how we
become who we are.
xv.
R acing & pacing i find
ideas lacing all that is absurd – Moon
o rchid’s blooming goes
looming, yet unheard, while
b rave orchid’s history
flutters frantic like a bird with a next of
e xtremities. It becomes
another word
r eaching atop the dragon’s
back, these mountains,
t ip-toeing along the tree
tops t be at the front of the line.
H ypnotically, i find myself
e ngaged in paranoia,
enraged to the soporific effects of insomnia,
d ancing without any
authority, prancing in need of celebrity,
b ounding somewhat
psychotically, pranking the
u nbelievability that I’m a boss ass bitch with my vulnerability
r unning, punning, punning,
running, panting frantic and
g oing nowhere as i pace
myself in this chaos.
xvi.
A nd the harder you
l ook the harder
y ou look, with language,
s ong, righting all that is
wrong,
s pringing voice boldly to
claim “we are strong”
a s we make meaning from the
meaninglessness.
P erspectives confess that
o rder is subjective, and
the objective
r an-dumb-ness is hidden
beyond
t he truth of every
culture’s lie.
o h, I’m small, too, David,
living on the
f ly, trying to be a
creative, artsy guy
e volving revolutions,
solving textual combustions,
e ach of us a speck of this
literary word-dust.
xvii.
D ancing with yourself
requires acceptance,
i slands, as individuals, in
a sea of others,
a sking to be okay in a
universe of drought. The
n eophyte in everything must
stand up and shout, without
d oubt, that all of us are
beautiful; no,
r eally beautiful in a
sometimes ugly world –
e ach of us our own warrior
avenging our villages, our homes,
C reating safe spaces for
where our soul roams
l earning to make a
difference within & without
a dvancing our karma with
the silence that we shout,
r eflectivng on the infinite
ways our dimples bring about change,
k eeping the soul in check
& our happiness in range.
xviii.
E very town has its rooster,
a crowing
m adman pecking about with
the hens, boostering
i ndividuality of the worker
bees,
l etting the flock do as the
laborers please in the
y odeling hardship of
upstate communities.
B ringing, singing, and
flinging half-moon traditions,
u ubiquitously, weaving
history through suspicions,
s erendipitously moving
beyond inhibitions, the ways we understand
h ome. Utica, Whitesboro,
e ven Rome –
y esterday’s family is a
rhizome for growing tomorrow.
xix
K nestled on the side of a
road sat a piece of driftwood –
e ventually it would
decompose or erode, completely,
l eaving a memory of its
formal self, a tree, now free,
l etting go of its roots,
existentially, unraveling
y anked from the soil &
loyalty of standing its ground.
K notted, old wood, against
the
e xpressway floor with a
final say, “I have
e volved and solved the
g ordian knot. Sojourned and
traveled, it
a ll become disheveled from
where i was to where i am
now, upon the gravel, where
i continue to revel in the journey."
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