Channeling Cyndi Lauper this Morning, as My First Shot of Tremfiya Arrived in Icepacks Left on My Front Steps in the Middle of the Day

Deliver was to be 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.. I had a meeting at 1, so left at 12:30. It was dropped off at 1:15, so at 2 p.m. I came home, unpacked the medication (as it was iced in a giant styrofoam box) and put it in the fridge so I could return to campus to teach. Interestingly, it came with all sorts of paperwork, but how to administer the shot (I have to do it myself). Alas, I was too friend to search online because I needed to prep for class.

In class, we discussed verse-novels, as each student chose a different one for their semester projects (a book a week). Assuming they would hate poetry, I did a poetry workshop where I showed how educators read poetry as writers, and help students to play with language so they, too, can understand why writers do as they do...especially poets.

Patrick read Keisha's House, so challenged them to give me six words (they chose blue, pencil, pajamas, prosperity, pasta, and chocolate). As they presented their books to each other, I quickly drafted a sestina (which is a style used in the book Patrick read).

Truly, I was simply trying to keep my mind occupied on anything but the drama of another election year. But it showed up in my poem, drafted in 15 minutes as they also worked. And with that, I'm off to teach my turbo.

The Day Before Tomorrow (modeling an impromptu sestina)

I can’t sleep past six. Yellow sun, skies blue,

and my manic brain needing to create,  to find a pencil

as I make my coffee and begin a ritual in pajamas

(lord knows I don’t do this for the prosperity

…but energize every night before…mostly pasta

 and, dare I admit it, chocolate. 

Today, however, I ate the chocolate

driving from home to campus feeling blue

because it’s election day & I am twirled like pasta

on a fork ready to be dipped in tomato sauce (where’s my pencil?

I might want to save the spaghetti for another poem…more prosperity,

Crandall. The poet drinking coffee & eating meatballs in his pajamas.

I’ve scanned social media for the Djs, Bobs, Mollys & PJs -

those I once went to school with (kids who sold chocolate

with me to raise money for sports, bands, so Norhtstars could prosper.

Kids dressed in varsity jackets of green and blue).

I’m thinking about voting…needing to bubble with a #2 pencil

(why wouldn’t I reflect on meals of yesterday, kids from the past?).

Our school was mostly Italians…I know because of the cookies and pasta

during holidays (way before kids were allowed to wear pajamas

in school). This morning, I want to note with a pencil

how I didn’t grow politically until I moved away (tried the chocolate

in Belgium, ate the Magnums in Denmark, and dyed kimonos with Tokyo blue -

I got an education, climbed out of the Syracuse cave, & sought intellectual prosperity,

as if I was learning from Caliban through books. Just call me Prospero…

and bury my yesterdays tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…keep me pasteurized.

This isn’t an English teacher poem, though: it’s political. Red, white, & blue

knowing that some of us where clothes to bed, others in other or just pajamas,

and life is rarely like that Democratic box of chocolate,

even if Gump wanted us to believe otherwise (sharpen that pencil).

Back to classmates of 1990 — the days of doing math with pencil

and thinking how if you could afford Gap or the Limited, you lived in prosperity.

Back to the days where we trick or treated for milky ways and chocolate

fueled from cheese and macaroni boiled in our youth (all that pasta)…

when it was cute to wear Star Wars & Cabbage Patch pajamas

before growing up and having to vote red state or blue.

Before taking a pencil to stab the eyes & vomit from the media’s pasta,

as our land of freedom & prosperity need a lot more nap time (prepare the pajamas).

All  I want is to bake a cake, chocolate, & to listen to some Coltrane…his blues