Today,

My english teacher,
with blonde curly hair
and the body figure of a stick,

told me,

that I am no good at poetry.

a heated argument then arose,

poetry techniques were
flown everywhere from two
different airports; our mouths,
and because I have the temper
of a four year old,

I hit her.

She was knocked out
and blood dribbled from her nose.

Later,
after she came to,
she apologized,

but I'm still deciding
whether or not
I should let her out
of the classroom
supplies cupboard.

“Yes, kid, I speak no lie when I say
That I’ve seen the whole world with my eyes,
I’ve sailed through waters, trudged barren lands,
Climbed tricky mountains, dived from high skies.

Different masters, different  creases pressing
Into my not-soft but not-so-hard skin, I’ve graced
Different shoes of different colors,
Materials, textures and shapes!

A hundred years I’ve lived in the best shoes, yes sir.
Finest, smartest leather sole, that’s me.
Don’t go by the frayed edges, kiddo,
There ain't no place where this black body hasn't been.

Ha! Look at those young eyes grow big already.
I hope you don’t faint in awe when I tell you
The story of the famous hunter who would
Silently surf deep jungles in his pointed boots.

Lions would yelp and tigers would weep,
For he'd never miss a mark when he’d shoot!
Or the one about that daring pirate whose lucky sole I was!
Only with me would he climb wealth-laden ships to loot.

Or maybe, that one, about the valiant soldier,
What an honor it was, kid, to accompany him as he ran,
Gun in hand, grit in heart, yours truly in shoe,
Single-handedly slaying armies for his Mother Land.

And you must have heard about the mighty landlord?
No? the one with the bungalow with a thousand rooms?
No? the one with the gold and silver in piles?
No? oh I was there too, inside one jewel-studded shoe!

Your ten-year old imagination can’t even wander
To where I’ve been for real.
And after an exciting lifetime of adventure,
I just decided to retire, and so I ended up here.”

Little mouth opened and shut in wonder,
As the tattered sole lay in his hands covered with dirt,
He listened in rapture to stories of victories and riches,
The tales penetrating his innocent heart.

O great leather deity, come with me, I’ll take you home,
You’re going to have fun with me too!
He squeaks; takes a piece of rope and ties the sole
Around his uncovered right foot.

And walks away, pleased, hitching up
His rag-picking bag on his thin shoulder.
One foot strapped with discarded, torn leather,
The other, dragging bare over the earth.

The intersection of air and aroma,
together brings sustenance and nostalgia.
That air, which once helped you breathe, now clogs your throat,
like a seafarer wading without a boat.
Epochs passing, as a lost love’s scent batters
the mind’s shore, once more sentient life scatters.
Here and now is lost, forgotten touches felt,
as waves of her sweet laugh dull any din dealt.
Like déjà vu she’s there then gone, now forlorn--
roused from the dream, which floats away before long.

Half eaten corpses
and the monster's
still hungry.

High, as well.

Cast down,
to the brim-******
side of mind.

Hannibal's House Of Cannibals
are out, for a night on the town.

An all you can eat
pedestrian buffet.

Is just a
munch-munch-munch
away.

My sweater is torn.
And its January. She can sew.
She taught herself on a Sunday afternoon last July.

My sleeve caught on the door handle as I left.
It was trying to stop me,
Hold me back, teach me a lesson.

The handle took my button.
I didn’t care. I could go back and get it.
But not today. I’ll fix it.

Stars, toggles, squares,
Pink, blue, white, navy.
I find a grey circle.

The thread finds its way
Through the four chambers
Of the button.

Atrium to ventricle.
Ventricle to atrium.
I double knot it.

She can sew.
I didn’t care.
And now I wear my button on my sleeve.

On April 26th, 372 B.C. Plato was the first man to inflict injury upon his own dreams.
Not the forms casting shadows in his cave, his literal dreams.
At 6:35 a.m. the impish snarl of a water ***** crept into his Utopia of an
all-you-can-eat gyro cart overturned at the corner of his street and roused him
back to consciousness. The ingenious design of his Clepsydra quite obviously complete,
Aristotle came running with the awkward stride of a sleepwalking adolescent
to see what his master had done. When he arrived he saw flying,
two pots of water, an air-compressing submersible chamber and one water ***** reed.
Aristotle quickly collected the shattered pieces and noted
that this broken pottery was more real than time itself.

On September 21st, 712 A.D. a small village just outside the boundaries of
Chang'an, China came dangerously close to taking the life of the palace
astronomer/inventor/sleepyhead. Crowding around the door of Yi Xing, the
townspeople tore their robes and wailed for him to put a stop to the
incessant clanging. Xing, who had apparently overslept and was still
clinging to morsels of fading dreams about his young mistress, stuffed his
face into his pillow, muttering eureka, after first having chucked the
two clay pots, handful of stones and plate-sized gong out the front door,
much to the amusement of the assembly of drooping eyelids and torn pajamas.

In the year 1235 A.D. tortured residents of Baghdad began associating their
daily and nightly times for prayer with the ringing of their eardrums from
uninvited chimes.

In 1493 St. Mark's Clock-tower polluted the once-pure Venetian air with
hourly reminders that we are all yet one hour closer to our inevitable death
and the priests of the day called it humility.

Levi Hutchins of New Hampshire turned to a pine cabinet, brass clock and
mechanical gears in 1787, and for the first time gave himself the ability to
choose when he would hate the morning.

In 1847, French inventor Antoine Redier began making money off of people's
early morning auditory masochism.

Lew Wallace, the morning after completing his masterpiece novel "Ben Hur,"
awoke with a fiendish beeping in his ear and proceeded to invent the paradox
of the snooze button.

In Spring of 1942 the war in Europe raged and all U.S. alarm clock production ceased.

In the Spring of 1943 well-rested factory men, confronted by their foreman
upon arrival at 9:15, erupted the words "my alarm clock is broken,"
forever placing the excuse in the deep pockets of slackers
world-wide.

To all of these respected men of our history
Who have thought with their hands to create
The foundation of a society drowning in Starbucks,
I wish to express my sincerest ingratitude.

I lie awake in bed at night,
Licking the bitter taste of reality from my cheeks,
In the company of Plato, Lew Wallace and Yi Xing,
Wondering what dreams will be stolen from me.