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The Art Teacher

for the one whose initials mean morning

"teaching art isn't about teaching art. it's just about letting people be - letting them be them, showing them it's ok. i don't know...that's why i like it. everyone is so scared...i like to try to show them they don't have to be afraid."

~~~~~~~

writ by one woman,
an art teacher
whose young life story
is a chain refrain,

put it on me,
put it down right on me


her see
nowadays
is her sea
of nowadays nothing but troubles,
ocean thirteen fathoms deep

what hasn't gone wrong,
just wasn't worth
being put on the list

we all need someone to lean on,
so here I am,
leaning on her,

surprise!

her prize,
a strength so profound
when depths plummeted,
she curses the dark deservedly
then writes me
another poem and
her sinking ship
never goes under,
despite life's repeated
offensive attempts
to play her,
down after down

you see she gets it,
not quite rightly,
she
is an artwork,
momentarily
needy for a frame suitable,
and I,

well,
am in a museum gallery
admiring her,
for she is great
art,
and from great
trouble,
her art grows greater,
her persona painting
simpler and straighter

so here I am thinking
student minoring in art,
think she is an art,
a teacher majoring
in teaching how to be

so here I am laughing,
my pandora gremlin
does it again,
playing games,
first "Lean On Me"

and then
"Let It Be"

so let her be,
so she can teach
the art of letting us
be
PostScript:
musta paid extra for this pandora
service that reads hearts and minds
for as this concludes,
it "plays"me for,
Tom Petty is singing me a lullabye,
"I Won't Back Down"
 Jun 2014 drumhound
r
Guard's boots echo on stone floor
Crash of ocean pounding rocks
Roar of wind across the waves
Lost gull cries against the storm
Clang of iron door slamming shut
Key rattled lock clunking tight
Stifled whimper, slap of skin on skin
Maddening laugh follows screams
Psalms 23-4 whispered over and over
Sounds of hell slide through my bars
like wisps of black smoke in the night.

r ~ 6/15/14
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/ \
 Jun 2014 drumhound
Nat Lipstadt
Dear Lord:

I am confused.

My life is Damocles,
My name is unimportant,
My sword's thread stretched
thinner than thin,
barely a 10 word poem
slender wide.

This body's homeland,
this deluded tired,
where my physic resides,
is indeed nominated accurately:

Sequestered.

Yet I am not alone,
though cut off in ways,
few can comprehend.

Sequestered.

Indeed,
secluded,
withdrawn but not by choice,
the loveliness of life
escapes and
eluded and yet,
I still believe...

a disciplined disciple,
my faith constant,
in this,
your awful trials and failed tests,
to me, success eludes,
and life deludes.

Yet,
tested beyond exhaustion,
you let me sojourn for a few brief, precious,
every-days in a multi-windowed world
where the entry fee is simply
the freedom of words
undenied,
but well defined,
in perfect clarity.

Rest and restlessness no longer debate.

Rest,
defeated has departed for more hospitable climes.

Weariness,
has won,
I rail not, swearing faith,
debate not your choices for us,
long ago,
surrendered that incomprehensible struggle.

Here I am
uncomplaining,
unfeignedly,
still here,
worn but standing in
your verbal grace.

One comfort
left
and it helps me
right
what's
wrecked
and for that,
I bear the knowledge and the burden of what ails all humans,
and what can bring them comfort unceasing..

Gifts so small  
that that some
single lettered,
make up a whole

here is me,

I

bowed, boxed, bowled over
and still bowing,
on so many days
in so many ways,
and in those the few hours
when the mind refuses
the opportunity to sleep,
hope tries to keep itself seeded

for here is  found,

Lord,

where sonnets bloom,
where one can draw welled fresh water comfort
from the words of poetry
with which you surround us,
letting me be reborn in hope ever so small,
daily, like you

The misbalance of life,
where the justice scales
seem weighted all wrong,
for in the glory of human word
is a world real and imaginary,
this poetry, this art,
so weighty this god gift to humans,
in its beauteous weightlessness,
gives me shelter so brief,
gives me shelter so grand,
that though my greatest burdens accursed,
so much suffering surrounded-sounded,

these shared words
and the ones
you gift me,
makes all these woeful waves
tamed and becalmed,
the scales of tribulation lose

Through these words,
breathe through them,
once again,
rest and strength,
restored and returned
in ever small lettered says
and your incomprehensible
Glory,
in humans,
thus stored for shared safekeeping,
is mine to share and shared.

So many the mysteries,
but this above all I cannot comprehend,
how can so many not see,
how so many abuse
so carelessly,
that greatest gift
after life itself,
the restorative words
so plentiful,
you have planted
within the earth of our
human existence.
for our fellow poet, Timothy, so long overdue this, my guilt finally expiated...ten times better than the best, he...my obligations won't let me leave as fast as I want to...

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/763485/timothys-prayer-answered/
3:34am
 May 2014 drumhound
Oco
madness
 May 2014 drumhound
Oco
sometimes i wonder
if the world i live in
is one i made up in my head
that exists only for me

and if that’s true
i don’t mind
because the world i’ve created
is filled with madness
but the best madness i’ve created for myself
is you
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