Academics

In honor of meeting Mr. Billy Collins (the former US poet Laureate and the first poet I fell in love with who wasn't dead) last night, and especially because I have dedicated my last three weeks to studying for the GRE; I felt like it was time to post a poem a bit lighter than the heavy academic world. I wrote this poem for my last professor. My last class before I graduated was Russian Lit and along with my last paper, I slipped this under the stack of papers. I welcome comments on this one because I have been told this poem might be offensive to a professor. I prefer to believe anyone with a sense of humor would appreciate it.

English Professor

He’s herded us through
fifteen weeks of communist ideology,
and six Russian novels
totaling 1,849 pages together.

We’ve compared each protagonist’s
mental state to Freud’s
theory of the Ego
and looked for phallic symbols
among Joseph Cambell’s archetypes.

He’s suggested we read
books like Lolita
and A Woman in Amber
sometime before we die.

We’ve analyzed the proletariat,
the theory of Animism,
and the Catholic Church
by the end of class,
and stayed ten minutes extra
as he explained the role
of excrement in a novel.

By the time we reach
Voinovich’s satire,
we’ve lost our
sense of humor.

But as he lectures
on a scene between
Gladishev and a horse,
he laughs and
wipes his mouth
like he’s just finished
a plate of ribs.

All Saints Day

Several years ago, while my best friend Jess and I were driving to school (commuting an hour if you will) I came to a realization. It was the day after Halloween, commonly known as All Saints Day. The air was thick with fog and smoke and it was cold as winter slept in the grass and under the car's hood. I looked out the window and watched as neighborhood after neighborhood unfolded into thin and quiet. Pumpkins were either burned and puckered on porches, or their faces were smashed into orange shards in the road.

I realized, Halloween has always been an amazing night of pretending to be something you are not. It was about dressing up and eating the best of the best candy. It was about fear, and the power of curiosity, to seek out screams and continue feeling unsafe. And then, this one morning, I noticed how calm swept in over the valley. People were themselves again, sleeping and breathing evenly and knowing with 100% assurity, everything was as it should be. Ghosts and ghouls and terror had drained away. It was pure relief.

All Saints Day is traditionally a day to honor the dead and those who have made religious sacrifices. This is another reason I love it. The day after evil has slipped into our line of vision, we are tugged back into good and light.

As I drove to work this morning, I recognized peace still present in the tired faces of career-driven people commuting into the city. Another October of sugar and fangs and rapid pulses, over. The night went well. We survived another season of fear.