Hamlet at the Workshop

“A little more than kin and less than kind.”

The Elsinorian air around him full of poetic pronouncements,

            straining against their iambic boxes

            and his misguided promise to a ghost in the woods.

He never follows directions.

He doesn’t know that he needs a clear tragic flaw.

He never learns from Sophocles

            how to model the evils of overstepping his bounds.

He has sworn away all bounds,

forever living in the “goodly frame”

            of the eloquent stage in his mind.

The father whose airy armor demands revenge

            is trumped by the un-poetic cruelty of murder.

The would-be father-in-law suffocates on the figurative air he can’t seem to breath,

            mocked by this Danish drop-out at every turn.

The young prince flees the love he desperately seeks.

He is cruel to be kind to be cruel.

Best friends gone, mother a betrayer or, worse, ignorant,

            only the pedantic comrade left,

            not even a shadow of the Protean hero he follows so helplessly.

Pirates, gravediggers, swordfights, staged murders,

            secrets behind every curtain,

            the readers’ eyes widen at every new surprise.

Every 21^st century teenager gets Hamlet,

            the comedy, the sarcasm, the hatred of boundaries,

            the chameleon moodiness of him – even though he is a 400-year-old ghost.

So I smile when the workshop leader, addressing 30 teachers, pronounces,

            “All stories fit into this 4 step pattern,”

            proudly pointing to a list of plot devices on a large computer screen,

            the bullet-listness of them demanding self-evident agreement.

My fellow teachers are actually writing this down.

I imagine Hamlet sitting next to me, twirling his quill sarcastically, that smirk on his face.

I wonder how long it would have taken him to get up, push his chair in,

            and walk out of the conference room and into the lobby

            for the illumination of a hot coffee and an ironic Danish.

Snow Day

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I was watching the weather report earlier today and was enjoying the precision with which the meteorologists predicted the forecast.  I imagined my snow day tomorrow and wondered what the meteorologists would predict about how I would spend my time.

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“Snow.”

“Chance of precipitation – 87%.”

Chance of a day off from school tomorrow – 100%.

Chance of me cooking ‘snow-day bacon’ and French toast – 98%.

Chance of my son wanting to build a sledding path, regardless of 
     temperature, wind, or personal safety.

Chance of my daughter and I enjoying our homemade chicken, lemon, 
     orzo soup – 97%.

Chance of reading over 200 pages tomorrow – 34%.

Chance of a lengthy list of domestic projects courtesy of my wife – 96%.

Chance of me lovingly reminding my wife that the French toast 
     and bacon breakfast as well as the homemade soup dinner 
     should liberate me from other chores – 87%.

Chance of my wife given me her stock look of disapproval – 77%.

Chance of playing Monopoly with my son– 68%.

Chance of expending 74% of my mental energy on limiting my son’s screen 
     time – 74%.

Chance of Facebook being littered with thoughtless clichés about snow – 
     100%.

Chance of my sarcastic response to the aforementioned clichés, 
     reminding my 672 “friends” that snow in New England 
     isn’t a novelty nor should we obsess about bread and milk – 86%.

Chance of me wondering to myself at Hanneford - - "Why bread and milk?
     Has the weather report infected the region 
     with a French-toast-fetish?" – 71%

Chance of me loving the fact that I just invented the phrase 
      “French-toast-fetish” in this poem – 100%.

Chance of the local weather being on TV constantly, creating 
      an ironic ‘white’ noise – 66%.

Chance of my smiling at the sound of Dean Olson’s voice
      tonight as she cancels school for the next 2 days, 
      barely hiding her glee - - 86%.

Chance of cabin fever infecting my home by Wednesday night 
      so that every glance or gesture is interpreted 
      as an invasion of personal space – 89%.

“Chance of precipitation – 87%.”

“Snow.”

"Lesson Plan"

Some teacher friends and I were recently discussing our first year teaching.  How utterly bad we were! Last week I attended a writing conference during which we were told to write an apology poem.  Recalling my earlier conversation with my colleagues, I chose to write an apology to my first English class back in 1997.
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I’m always afraid of my first English class showing up on my doorstep.

The most peaceful place I had ever been was on the fourth floor

of the Mullen Library at Catholic University.

My only worry was getting Keats just right

amid the dusty silence of stacks of first editions

and unread dissertations.

Back in 1997 though there was no peace,

just a sea of hormonal 14-year-old boys

quoting South Park with scholarly precision.

I’d forgotten until now how lost I was at the front of that class,

ignorant of the fact that I didn’t need all the answers,

that the perfect lesson plan had nothing to do

with helping kids enjoy Juliet’s strength,

Scrooge’s conversion, or the powerful voices

laying dormant in their teenage pens.

I come from a long line of people who had no time to read,

waitress-matriarchs, unit managers at the General Electric’s gear plant,

fire-fighters who worked two jobs to make ends meet.

My relatives would have been uncomfortable sitting in my first classroom.

My grandfather’s thick Polish frame would have chaffed at the edge

of the tiny desk - he preferred to read on his couch,

biographies of Patton and MacArthur.

His big blue eyes would have rolled at my stupid presentations

on nouns and narrative voice.

My two grandmothers would have left the classroom

the minute I told them they couldn’t smoke.

They’d all be proud I had a job that required a tie.

If I had only realized that my first class, and every class after,

was just a group of people discussing books

and discovering who they were with a pen.

I’d like to tell them I’m sorry - Chris Ritchie, Ben Martin,

Andrew Goodwin, Paul Tortorici, Chris Ferguson,

and the rest of my first class.

I didn’t know how to be 23 and be a real teacher.

I’m sorry I didn’t listen more rather than just try to be smart.

And I’m sorry I didn’t know how to get out of the way.

Send Error Report

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My computer is so polite,

its binary kindness

pressed into a little square

asking me to SEND ERROR REPORT?

I imagine some poor intern at a desk

rubbing sleep from his eyes,

wiping coffee stains from his plain white dress shirt.

No SAT tutor,

spelling errors on his admissions essay,

“Call of Duty” instead of Organic Chemistry.

He slouches behind the unfortunate desk –

a sad mockery of the desks he ignored in college,

next to the tired single mother happy to work

in the quiet predictability of an office.

Children dream of being astronauts,

famous baseball players, doctors, and princesses.

Cheering crowds and large mansions furnish

our youthful imaginations,

adventures in far-away lands,

a world of endless surprise,

leaving the boring jobs

to kids who don’t have the luxury of their own dreams.

No little boy tells his teacher –

when I grow up I want to be the ‘SEND ERROR REPORT’ guy,

a job that has never been discussed

in the glitter-and-glue world of first grade.

I was always told that I would have to pay for my mistakes.

I will never understand the “Error” I made

but I am glad that it is now someone else’s problem,

someone reading my screen in anger

in an office I will never see.

My Son, Achilles

I wrote this poem while half reading Fagles' translation of "The Iliad" and half watching my son at fencing practice.  It struck me that my son has a rich inner life, contrary to the stereotypes about young boys.  I can imagine him in an ancient epic, needing time to think about what is going on.  I saw him carefully put on his fencing gear on his way to a simulated battle and I began to write this poem.

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My son, like Achilles, is not one for team sports.

He jumps in the car on the way to play practice,

pounces on his bike to cruise the neighborhood

like a 10-year-old James Dean.

But the appeal of team sports has always eluded him.

Like the Achaean hero, he stews over the 5^th grade cheater,

privileges promised and not received,

the countless schoolyard injustices.

He slinks away to his videos, his Legos, and his solitude

as the battles rage on without him.

Maybe that’s why he enjoys fencing,

the ceremonial dressing for combat,

the bobbing and weaving on his own wine-dark sea

as he imagines avenging the death of his Patroclus

while the god who moves lightning

bellows for the class to do 30 push-ups,

my son, hands and toes on the mat,

surrendering to the gods once more.

The Good Witch

I dedicate this poem during "Teacher Appreciate Week" to my third grade teacher, Mrs. Takis.  I entered third grade not being able to read.  Mrs. Takis's classroom was quiet, focused, and she guided us to excellence.  Every day of my teaching life and every book I enjoy is due to her.

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Black frizzie hair,

thick, bulbous nose,

 5’2,’’ 230 pounds,

eyes from a Hitchcock film,

Mrs. Takis meant business

and her business was the 3^rd grade.

The room was gray and brown,

designed by the colorblind and the indifferent.

There were no birthday charts,

smiley faced figures

or cats hanging merrily on a tree

telling us to “hang in there.”

Just rows of desks standing at attention,

miniature closets for our tiny coats and lunchboxes,

and the smell of lead pencils,

thick pink erasers, and our own fear.

I was scared,

scared of being asked to read aloud

when words were still a mystery to me,

scared of feeling dumb in the face

of a woman who could smell ignorance

as it hid itself inside my big Red Sox hat.

On the first day of class

I leaned to my right

and joked with my friend Aaron

(who, amazingly, wasn’t picking his nose).

With her bat-like hearing

Mrs. Takis sensed the subtle sound waves

of the whisper from 20 feet away,

put her Broom-Hilda face inches from mine

and told me “NEVER TO TALK OUT OF TURN AGAIN!!!”

This was all on the first day of school,

long before she made sure I took home

my multiplication flash cards,

long before she would cup my hand in hers

as I practiced my cursive letters,

long before she praised me

after I read three words in a row

and moved me away from my friends

when real work needed to get done.

School was to be my business too –

a new idea.

By springtime, I was less scared of her

and even 30 years later

I can hear the feverish syncopation

of her heeled shoes echo in the hallway,

and her nicotine-stained voice

commanding me again –

“BE QUIET, OPEN YOUR BOOK, AND READ.”

Vacation

Turbulence. 

My knuckles tore at the canvas of the airplane’s seat’s arms as my son watched a documentary on great white sharks.  His eyes glowed with joy at surfboards with horror-movie bloodstains, defenseless tuna, and seals bitten in half by these beautiful monsters.  

More turbulence.

As we landed in Boston, my hands relaxed.  He turned his TV off.  I asked, “What did you think?” (meaning the 7 days in Florida).  He said, “I like the one that flies” (meaning the South African great white shark who kills as it soars through the air, like a plane in a windless cloud).

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My Favorite Mythical American Hero

They march all day through Lexington and Fort Ticonderoga.

Half-boots land on dirt in time to “Yankee Doodle Dandy,”

muskets waiting to drink the powder that kills.

Their minds drift to wives sewing buttons by the hearth

and defeating the “royal brute,” King George III.

The rainwater soaks their ash-gray wool uniforms

but their knees reach high as the march continues.

Families from farmhouse windows

see them pass and marvel at their speed.

The Redcoats haven’t a chance, they think,

against these men under the command of Major Dickason.

The rain somehow seems to make them faster.

I open my eyes and hear it drip into my mug.

 “Pete’s Coffee” –

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“Major Dickason’s Blend: Dark Roast,”

enough to keep me fighting one more day.