Monday, April 2, 2012

Poem


John Sinclair On Parent Teacher Day


The hair was kudzu cowed some, half

tamed dark rogue storm cloud beetled

above a wooly Bolshevik glower, eyes

folded fortune cookies concealed behind thick

lenses corralled in thin metal frames, hands

jammed deep into the pockets of his gulag great

coat concealing what?

a carbine,

the manifesto du jour,

stashed pharmacopeia,

a lulled bear driven out of hibernation, higher

brain warming on a back burner or

so I imagined, a student teacher with nothing

better to do, the morning blocked out in

neat fifteen minute intervals, four small

chairs, sturdy oak table, grade book open, ready.


The teacher checked his watch from time

to time, two monks pledged to an uneasy silence

until he lumbered in, our sole customer that morning,

nodding at news of his daughter, a dewy eight

or nine, nervous, tall for her age.  A strict observer

I nodded along in smug solidarity, alone

in my recognition of moribund underground

royalty, self-appointed Peter denying Christ,

beholden to the man for my grade.


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