Embrace an English teacher today.
At least think about it:
her eyes like dos puntos: period period..
His member an exclamation incarnate!
The vehicle of Interjections!
Speculate on ellipses and spaces:
drafting, practice, practice.
Imagine an English teacher, Mr. So and So, his khakis
creased, his loafers left at the door;
he is polishing his hardwood floor
with the whitest of socks, uncovering his tattoo which
says, “Embrace the pen, use me as your muse.”
Imagine a stack of books all poetry;
where would we be without our teachers?
Just a hand, a moving ghost at the street light,
all text turning to symbols, hurdling backwards in
time to hieroglyphics,
caveman cavewoman did not punctuate.
Can an English teacher easily be replaced by say, the school bus driver
between picking up and dropping off ? —just read, kid. Sit down and shut up.
Just write the sentences and don’t ax no questions—easy—
shut up—you hit that kid and I’ma put you on the corner, and I don’t
care if your mama ever find you. Shut up—no hands out
the windows; class dismissed.
So who cares about books; whole books take too much time.
Who needs Steinbeck and Tim O’Brien, Willa Cather, Rita Dove
and Randall Jarrall?
Mary Oliver? —who needs English when we have French and Greek,
Lorca and Neruda—who need periods and semi-colons?
Ever heard of semi-colons anonymous?
It works. Keeps the focus on you and not those problematic little scratches on pages
Fuck English teachers, we want soul stories, soul poets. Who needs to communicate clearly
when we can say how we feel right here?—who needs the page, age, writing, speaking clearly?
Lawyers maybe, not you and me.
Engineers, sure, not you and me. And so the bridges fall.
Who needs English teachers? fuck em—