Tennessee River

Hold your breath and fall in,
digging toes into the gross algae-
mud seven feet deep and stay
still enough for the minnows
to nibble at your warm skin.
Pull yourself along by the dock
posts that are rotting so slowly,
but come up for air sometimes.
Or the posts will bar you in,
the catfish will become your friend,
and the mud, your bed at night.
The dirty river makes no judgments,
expects so little, and cares so much
it’s too comfortable not to stay.

National Grammar Day

In honor of National Grammar Day, I'd like to post a poem that I wrote a while back that reminds us all of a time when our high school English teachers (bless their hearts) were teaching us how to write essays.



My First Essay

I write a thesis, or

is that a theme? Not like
the paper but like the

string of words pulled out of a text

in order to make sense of the work.

Ok, so thesis-writing,

theme-reading is what I’m doing.

I wrench a theme from the story.

No, that is an observation, so

I try to write a thesis instead,

but it turns out to be a summarizing sentence.

Which I thought was right.

So I finally find the theme

and form from it, an idea,

until I have created:

a thesis.

I raise my hand, ready for my words

to be checked against the

the incredible intellect of my

beloved

(well not so much now)

teacher.

“That’s a good start.”

Start?

“But it is too wordy,

so pull out the most important part,

the one that gathers the focus

of your paper and state it.

Then put these introductory words here,

wrap it around an interesting fact,

glue this here, clip this out,

summarize, tack it with a dot

at the end, and there you have it.”

No I don’t.