Two Weenie Poems Posted Together to Help Fulfill Loyal Readers

"Perforated"

then the top fell through the bottom
and all predictions fell futile.
the path walked was beaten,
the path to walk
invisible.
the heart
perforated
as though someone knew something
I didn't
and marked me
with the knowledge
from the inside.
from observator to insider
I suddenly hope to change.
what good are choices
should they be
pre-cut
by a subconscious
(and an inconsiderate one at that.)



"Tightrope"

heartstrings a tightrope
to be navigated
gingerly, precisely
as though the line walked
is between clouds
instead of between
feelings.

because feelings,
if we can help it,
are only felt
and never stressed
or pressed.
the unknown, unsurprisingly,
left alone.

your feelings, clouds?
to block the sun
allow for shade?
or to swell before you
and rain upon parades?
take your time.
one foot in front of the other.

[I hope writing these one after the other makes up for their somewhat identical style.]

The Verdict

I face the windowed wall
twisted in a dark blue armchair
(its velvet rubbed to linen
where heads lay
and coffee mugs rest)
so that elbows touch ankles
and toes meet fingers.

Grey leggings coat my lower limbs,
emerging from your red knit sweater
whose arms envelop mine.
My worn-out knuckles are lost inside the cuffs.

I watch the sky and ask it what to write.
The birds are middlemen, reporting
my anthologies' titles to the clouds --
evidence offered while they determine
what more I have to express.

A door opens, closes.
Footsteps grow more pronounced behind me.
You kiss my ear.
The clouds are silent.
The rain is not.

Derailed

[I've written even more to post for you. But everything in moderation...]

my mind is in one million places
divided by your words
hurtling towards me - through me -
from all directions.
bits of surrounding conversations
derail trains of thought
without my permission.
I am painfully
unflinchingly aware
of my weaknesses,
my inability to battle
sanity's erosion
like water through a cliff's cracks.
or similarly,
the photos radiating sunny dispositions
from ill-fated good old days
discovered in the midst of a marriage's
final hours.
the season's first snowfall,
a European vacation,
our late daughter's last birthday.
though toted here for safe-keeping,
I release them to the storm drain,
flinching in pain
as I remember your words
spoken with more clarity, precision
and spite
than I could even begin to muster
here
amidst a train station's bustle.
"I told you," you say.
"Trying to heal only hurt us more."
"But where will you go?" I exclaim.
then nothing, before:
"Be well, Clara. Look ahead
and try to forget me."
I pull myself back to now,
having learned to suppress.
looking ahead, I wonder if my train is approaching
but silently hope
among so many spoken hopes
that the tracks are getting longer
and instead pushing my future farther away from me.
I invite the enveloping chaos
reluctantly
desperately
granting permission to its whining,
shouting,
laughing.
I grant tearful permission
to separate my sanity from itself.
for it is irreparable and
like my soul,
left behind
as my body boards the train.

I don't have any resolutions. Now I can't disappoint myself!

Happy New Year, loves.

I'm not looking forward to writing "09" at the end of each paper's date for a whole YEAR. I don't like 9s much.

We'll see if days like today color what's left of my time here.

Let the countdown to next May begin.

(< I didn't take that picture... darn.)

497613

The shiny, silver bracelets
connecting her wrists
limited her movement
but released my inexplicable affection.

As she turned to face her warden,
our eyes met and exchanged a silent truth.
She breaks the law.
I enforce it.

My evening's fate,
Chinese take-out and Seinfeld reruns,
looked suddenly and strangely bland
when compared to another option.

Number...497613
was to be transferred,
in all of her tall, slender, dark brunette beauty,
to a lower security prison.

Her accompanying officer Deputy Hark
conveniently complained that The Bachelor ends tonight,
Marla's making garlic mashed potatoes,
and Trotner, would you take her for me please.

I thought of my overflowing heart,
her golden eyes,
nodded,
and obliged.

[Lit Mag final]

Bare

My remaining strength is inadequate.
I hold on, brown knuckles white from exhaustion.
The air is so cold,
so mind-numbingly cold,
that my translucent veins feel the same.
My changing feet dangle far above
an inevitable fate.
I braved the sweltering sun,
pelting rain,
droughts without ends in sight.
I now add the occasional flurry to my life story,
debating whether it's one worth telling.
I risk losing focus to peer at the ground
but immediately wish I hadn't.
All of my family, all of my friends --
fallen.
Their waxy green sheens now turned
to hues of sun,
their resilience now brittle
and lives now lost.
I take a final breath
and join them.

"The Best-hidden Government Secret from New York's Public"

So I was listening to "This American Life," my favorite podcast, last night on my iPod. It's a radio show that picks a theme and stories within the theme to tell. They're true stories told by the people who experienced them. Last night's episode was called "Human Resources," and one of the segment's stories caught my attention. It's titled "The Rubber Room."

New York City Public Schools educate more students than the combined population of 8 US states. The teachers who teach in those schools, like in any other school system, are suspended for unacceptable behavior when need be. When teachers are suspended in NYC, they are told to report to the Redistribution Center for further instructions. What the teachers don't know, is that the place they're directed to has no idea when the teachers will be teaching again. The teachers are sent indefinitely to a center they call The Rubber Room.

There are 5 of these centers in NYC. They hold an estimated 900 teachers on any given day. The teachers report to these centers from 8-4 like they would any other work day. Once they're there, however, they realize something completely outside of what they expected. In The Rubber Rooms, there is nothing to do.

Nothing. The teachers sit in chairs, reading or playing cards, making friends and sometimes enemies over the course of weeks. Months. Years. The Rubber Room, effectively, is a detention center for teachers. Some call it "teacher jail." But they stay -- and receive a salary.

30 million dollars go to Rubber Room teachers every year, courtesy of the taxpayers. Some find it a scandal, while others find it a worthy method of putting teachers in their place. The teachers' offenses range anywhere from having 'creative differences' with their principals to screaming, cursing, or throwing chairs at students. Most teachers don't even know their charges. And though they're paid, "not one teacher considers themselves lucky."

Not every teacher is angry. One teacher pointed out that "if you hate teaching and love playing cards, this isn't bad at all." Most though, after long bouts of denial, feel "demoralized" and "robbed of their dignity." The Rubber Room's social aspects speak of high school's. Teachers are cliquey, gossipy, and territorial. Going away parties are thrown for teachers leaving to teach again, while some teachers never do. One was fired after 2 Rubber Room years.

Want to know more? Go, like I did, to www.rubberroommovie.com. Yep. There's a movie. The site features Rubber Room facts, myths debunked, and the movie trailer itself. And when you're done with that, subscribe to "This American Life" on iTunes for free.