I walked into Robert’s office that morning to find it in shambles. File cabinets forced open and papers strewn about it such a way that my first thought was that there must have been a robbery. I asked my partner about his office and asked him why everything looked so cluttered and unorganized and he said simply, “ I have had an impossible weekend.” I didn’t really know what to say to Robert and somewhere while lost in thought I offered to help clean his large marbletop desks.
Tasha pried the engagement ring from her hand and hurled it at Jack.She was tired of being placed second and third on his list of priorities and it was time to follow her heart. As she retreated from their home Jack gave chase but stopped in mid stride when he saw the hotred flushed look on her face, that he had long ago learned, meant stay away from me.
Stinky Eye- 1. That look you get from another person that says you’ve violated some unspoken trust. 2. The look!
One thing I will never get used to is this Missouri weather. Yesterday it was 69 degrees and today it’s 3 below. I spent the whole morning getting dressed oblivious to the outside temperature and I dressed in shorts and I open my front door and am meet with wind and snow. Some times I wish I could simply handle the cold weather so I could enjoy the outside in the wintertime. I waould love to go sledding with my children one year but mostly I just stay inside by a warm fire. Icesickles outline the bumber of my car.
This is my one and only problem, Mrs. Esterhouse. She must have something against me. The fellas have been telling me that ever since like 1963 she’s been teaching at Normandy middle school. My dad said that she even taught when he was going to school there and she hasn’t changed at all. Still grumpy for no apparent reason and nobody has ever seen her smile. The last horribly difficult test she handed back graded said Gotcha in big bold letters at the top.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
03/10/09
Most days she walks around feeling tense, on gaurd, as if bracing herself for a blow that might break something. I can sympathize with her because I can imagine how much energy she waste generating those stone walls of protection. I know how time-consuming it is to craft an impenetrable facade so that nobody can peer through and find out how vunerable we really are. We are strong, yet we have allowed the weak to trample on us time and time again, and thier are bruises. This morning I watched her carefully apply the make-up to conceal the scars, she hid the black eye with sunglasses, put on her lipstick and smiled. My heart, it weaps for her, 'cause she can't bring herself to the point where she can pack up the kids and move into the shelter.
03/10/09
There should come a point where I ought to stop allowing these old feelings to eat at me. My emotions have run wild long enough, holiding me under the water of despair, and it ought to be time to let it go. Why then does my heart retain this smallest bit of self condemnation off in the niches and invisible nooks? It comes to me after short burst of frustration and anger, but when all the dust settles I remember it was that same flaw in my character that broke her heart in the first place. Some nights I sit, think, and cry wondering will I ever change. I sit to keep from pacing and I think about every relationship I have managed to burn to the ground with selfish attitudes. The tears come because so much of the rest is bottled up or buried under regret that they simply have no place to receed to anymore. I is more than just male ego, I mean, my greatest fallacy was in thinking I knew what it meant to love. Now hindsight is twenty-twenty but it still hurts when I look back, it burns a crease right down the center of things. It's like a line drawn through smooth sand and still here I am just standing.Behind me as far as the eye can see, is a winding trail of failure and part of me just can't take that first step over the line.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Polly want a Cracker
Phillip R. Moller
I feel this essay speaks true to the educational process and our involvement therein. How the system seems to almost reprogram us like a computer, and instead of teaching us how to think simply teaches us to repeat.
I agree with the fact that the process of becoming an educational parrot is not a quick one. It takes years of systematic programming to become a parrot of any stature. Inside the cage is a lonely place for anyone whose brain has outgrown it but it is a place many of us feels comfortable. We have been taught that this cage is our home and that it is where we ought to be. Although we’re far from happy there we don’t know how to survive in any other place or climate. For some of us parrots, honey nuggets and crackers are all we have an appetite for, and for those morsels we will recite, rehearse, and repeat all those key phrases we’ve been taught until it’s time for the shade to be pulled over the cage.
In many ways I see where Polly is coming from. I skipped right over the second grade and soon after I sprouted my first set of feathers. I hadn’t made friends with any of the other parrots in my class because all the other parrots in the first grade were still pink and had shown no signs of feathers. I was different to them and they were strange to me. For many years I excelled in the structure of the school environment because I was willing to conform to what administrators told me to do. For a long time I actually wanted to be that bright, beautiful parrot. As a parrot my mother commented on how well I scored on test and she place all my high marks on the refrigerator of our home with pride. Her praise and positive reinforcement was most times the highlight of my day. Consequently I unwittingly strived for a time to be the best parrot I could be.
Although I was comfortable with the way things were in my elementary and junior high schools, by high school I had almost completed the metamorphosis from bright, outstanding parrot into a chameleon. I no longer wanted to standout in any way; I just wanted to fade away into the background while I figured out who I was. It had been almost six years since the death of my father and a year since I had seen or spoken to my mother. I had lost that positive reinforcement and the guiding light in my world and at the time I had nowhere else to turn, so I turned inward. I went from worrying about how to become book smart to trying to figure out how to keep my anger in check and deal with the real world outside of that gilded cage.
The writer of this essay touches base with me when he or she talks about needing to be that parrot again. Figuring out that although being a parrot was contrary to their new system of thinking, it serves a purpose. Not only inside the realm of the educational system for me but in life. I can relate because although I had lost so much as a child and consequently derailed my life I discovered that I could not simply drown in my anger and fear. I could not throw away all the lessons I had learned simply because I felt a certain way. I had to rediscover the parrot inside of me and use it for its advantages and leave behind what I disliked. I had to weigh the pros and cons of conformity and develop my own way of getting the job done that would appease all parties involved. I don’t know what it took for the writer of Polly want a cracker to come to terms with things being the way they are but for me I had to reach into my heart and pull out all the junk.
Each of us posses what some would consider an inner person, a soul, the human spirit, which causes us at times to reflect on what we have become? That driving force provides us with the motivation to think about where we want to go and what we want to do. It also asks, "Who are you?"Are you a saint or a sinner, a lost dog or a confident prowling lion, a caged parrot or an eagle soaring free?
I feel this essay speaks true to the educational process and our involvement therein. How the system seems to almost reprogram us like a computer, and instead of teaching us how to think simply teaches us to repeat.
I agree with the fact that the process of becoming an educational parrot is not a quick one. It takes years of systematic programming to become a parrot of any stature. Inside the cage is a lonely place for anyone whose brain has outgrown it but it is a place many of us feels comfortable. We have been taught that this cage is our home and that it is where we ought to be. Although we’re far from happy there we don’t know how to survive in any other place or climate. For some of us parrots, honey nuggets and crackers are all we have an appetite for, and for those morsels we will recite, rehearse, and repeat all those key phrases we’ve been taught until it’s time for the shade to be pulled over the cage.
In many ways I see where Polly is coming from. I skipped right over the second grade and soon after I sprouted my first set of feathers. I hadn’t made friends with any of the other parrots in my class because all the other parrots in the first grade were still pink and had shown no signs of feathers. I was different to them and they were strange to me. For many years I excelled in the structure of the school environment because I was willing to conform to what administrators told me to do. For a long time I actually wanted to be that bright, beautiful parrot. As a parrot my mother commented on how well I scored on test and she place all my high marks on the refrigerator of our home with pride. Her praise and positive reinforcement was most times the highlight of my day. Consequently I unwittingly strived for a time to be the best parrot I could be.
Although I was comfortable with the way things were in my elementary and junior high schools, by high school I had almost completed the metamorphosis from bright, outstanding parrot into a chameleon. I no longer wanted to standout in any way; I just wanted to fade away into the background while I figured out who I was. It had been almost six years since the death of my father and a year since I had seen or spoken to my mother. I had lost that positive reinforcement and the guiding light in my world and at the time I had nowhere else to turn, so I turned inward. I went from worrying about how to become book smart to trying to figure out how to keep my anger in check and deal with the real world outside of that gilded cage.
The writer of this essay touches base with me when he or she talks about needing to be that parrot again. Figuring out that although being a parrot was contrary to their new system of thinking, it serves a purpose. Not only inside the realm of the educational system for me but in life. I can relate because although I had lost so much as a child and consequently derailed my life I discovered that I could not simply drown in my anger and fear. I could not throw away all the lessons I had learned simply because I felt a certain way. I had to rediscover the parrot inside of me and use it for its advantages and leave behind what I disliked. I had to weigh the pros and cons of conformity and develop my own way of getting the job done that would appease all parties involved. I don’t know what it took for the writer of Polly want a cracker to come to terms with things being the way they are but for me I had to reach into my heart and pull out all the junk.
Each of us posses what some would consider an inner person, a soul, the human spirit, which causes us at times to reflect on what we have become? That driving force provides us with the motivation to think about where we want to go and what we want to do. It also asks, "Who are you?"Are you a saint or a sinner, a lost dog or a confident prowling lion, a caged parrot or an eagle soaring free?
03/09/09
The Five Senses
I would rather be in sunny California with my family. I have a brother who lives in Long Beach and I continue to put off seeing him year after year and now it has been at least eight years since I saw him last. He is 16 now living three blocks away from the beach and four blocks away from his school but nobody there to teach him to be a man. I would rather live in the land of milk and honey than in the realm of ice storms and other dramatic weather occurrences. I want to submerge my feet in the hot sands on my way to the cool ocean where I can spend a lazy afternoon swimming like the fishes do. I can’t imagine ever coming back to where I am now after leaving California. If I was not there then some other place as equally warm and serene. I choose Cali because my family is there and I have already missed so much of their lives because I have been so busy doing my own thing. I miss the fact that the worse weather there was El Niño and even when it did happen to rain everything would wash away momentarily. I want to go somewhere nice for once where I might feel like just another person in the mix rather than a black eyed pea.
In this place I am surrounded by all the beauty the world has to offer. Southern California offers one a bright sun and a warm climate much of the year and a diversity in culture than could hardly be considered second rate. I can remember being there once and having more friends who were Thai and Cambodian than whites but they too are there. I had friends from all nationalities and those memories have stayed with me more than any other kind of visual stimulus. With the diversity in colors of skin came the different kinds of foods. I distinctly remember there being one of those combo joints with Chinese food and a Dunkin doughnut. I can remember a place in Compton than sold fish tacos and in my mind’s eye I see a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles place.
If I were blind the state of California would still offer me so much to listen to. I hear the loco gangster wannabees in their drop top rides riding down the streets bumping loud music and rattling their trunks. I take a walk down the boardwalk and I hear the sound of the ocean waves like background music to and orchestra of people. The ocean sounds like gentle cymbals and mighty drums all at the same time.
As a deaf mute I heard that the only place I could enjoy myself was on a beach and if I wanted to be treated well as they tend to treat people I should want to move to America, To the Hollywood hills. They say that the sun feels like a paraffin wax on the skin and the sand feels like a gentle soothing massage.
Only one sense to dare now and I can smell all the mighty fragrances of the land and the people. The Spanish mom and pop shop smells like Mexican candy and Carson Street smells like home. The scent of the women breaks up happy homes and draws men into lustful desires. At least some men who have learned to follow their nose. I can’t possibly leave out the smell of growth. Fresh cut grass and the freshly ripened
Oh I forgot about the way the mangos taste. The fruits that never make it to Missouri ripe and so they remain for those blessed with the fortune of the coast. I can taste that sweet nighttime air and I can taste the sweat of life from the hustle and bustle of the world around me. This should be the city that rarely sleeps.
I would rather be in sunny California with my family. I have a brother who lives in Long Beach and I continue to put off seeing him year after year and now it has been at least eight years since I saw him last. He is 16 now living three blocks away from the beach and four blocks away from his school but nobody there to teach him to be a man. I would rather live in the land of milk and honey than in the realm of ice storms and other dramatic weather occurrences. I want to submerge my feet in the hot sands on my way to the cool ocean where I can spend a lazy afternoon swimming like the fishes do. I can’t imagine ever coming back to where I am now after leaving California. If I was not there then some other place as equally warm and serene. I choose Cali because my family is there and I have already missed so much of their lives because I have been so busy doing my own thing. I miss the fact that the worse weather there was El Niño and even when it did happen to rain everything would wash away momentarily. I want to go somewhere nice for once where I might feel like just another person in the mix rather than a black eyed pea.
In this place I am surrounded by all the beauty the world has to offer. Southern California offers one a bright sun and a warm climate much of the year and a diversity in culture than could hardly be considered second rate. I can remember being there once and having more friends who were Thai and Cambodian than whites but they too are there. I had friends from all nationalities and those memories have stayed with me more than any other kind of visual stimulus. With the diversity in colors of skin came the different kinds of foods. I distinctly remember there being one of those combo joints with Chinese food and a Dunkin doughnut. I can remember a place in Compton than sold fish tacos and in my mind’s eye I see a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles place.
If I were blind the state of California would still offer me so much to listen to. I hear the loco gangster wannabees in their drop top rides riding down the streets bumping loud music and rattling their trunks. I take a walk down the boardwalk and I hear the sound of the ocean waves like background music to and orchestra of people. The ocean sounds like gentle cymbals and mighty drums all at the same time.
As a deaf mute I heard that the only place I could enjoy myself was on a beach and if I wanted to be treated well as they tend to treat people I should want to move to America, To the Hollywood hills. They say that the sun feels like a paraffin wax on the skin and the sand feels like a gentle soothing massage.
Only one sense to dare now and I can smell all the mighty fragrances of the land and the people. The Spanish mom and pop shop smells like Mexican candy and Carson Street smells like home. The scent of the women breaks up happy homes and draws men into lustful desires. At least some men who have learned to follow their nose. I can’t possibly leave out the smell of growth. Fresh cut grass and the freshly ripened
Oh I forgot about the way the mangos taste. The fruits that never make it to Missouri ripe and so they remain for those blessed with the fortune of the coast. I can taste that sweet nighttime air and I can taste the sweat of life from the hustle and bustle of the world around me. This should be the city that rarely sleeps.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Sing
She hasn't sang her songs
Not in many years
She cries in her sleep
And I wipe away the tears
She holds her head high
And puts on a good face
But when she lets down her guard
I know her heart aches
I need to be strong for her
But I don't know how
Inside I'm going crazy
No one can save me now
And when I'm gone
Who will be there to wipe her crying eyes
And hold her when she's lonely
Or unmask her disguise
Who will fill that empty space
Who will let her laugh
Who will carry her away to
A warm drawn bubble bath
Who will stop the pain
And set her heart free
When her entire life is
Wrapped inside of me
Tonight I close my eyes
And wait for death to come
Listening to the wind
And bathing in the sun
I search deep within myself
To find where I belong
Then she takes my hand
And sings my favorite song
I try to peer into her heart
To find what's underneath
I rip through her hidden terror
And leave a piece of me
I wrote this poem back in 1998 and I guess Im posting it to see if the readers can notice any sort of differences in my writing now than when I was 13 years old. I think it's important to feel like your maturing as a writer, at least for oneself. See I never wrote anything to try and impress someone I don't think. I have wrote things to ladies when I was a little younger and a little more naieve. I like to write and it's wierd for a black man to like to write. I mean I don't see a lot of men like me inerested in writing short stories or poems that don't just turn into raps. I never wanted to be a rapper really but it would seem that's where there is a lot of money to be made and so thier is some kind of attraction to it. But mostly I just wanted to tell stories but I don't (for myself ) feel like I am good enough to make money thier either so I simply write for the love of writing. I admit before I started school this year there was a long sabatical from writing anything. It would seem that life outside of this sort of setting doesn't afford a man to do much pleasure writing and other things block your mind from flowing freely but I still love it, it seems.
Today I volunteered some time to the Salvation Army working at thier thrift store from about noon til four and I found pleasure in doing good. It's odd how much my life is changing and how my thoughts about life change with it.
She hasn't sang her songs
Not in many years
She cries in her sleep
And I wipe away the tears
She holds her head high
And puts on a good face
But when she lets down her guard
I know her heart aches
I need to be strong for her
But I don't know how
Inside I'm going crazy
No one can save me now
And when I'm gone
Who will be there to wipe her crying eyes
And hold her when she's lonely
Or unmask her disguise
Who will fill that empty space
Who will let her laugh
Who will carry her away to
A warm drawn bubble bath
Who will stop the pain
And set her heart free
When her entire life is
Wrapped inside of me
Tonight I close my eyes
And wait for death to come
Listening to the wind
And bathing in the sun
I search deep within myself
To find where I belong
Then she takes my hand
And sings my favorite song
I try to peer into her heart
To find what's underneath
I rip through her hidden terror
And leave a piece of me
I wrote this poem back in 1998 and I guess Im posting it to see if the readers can notice any sort of differences in my writing now than when I was 13 years old. I think it's important to feel like your maturing as a writer, at least for oneself. See I never wrote anything to try and impress someone I don't think. I have wrote things to ladies when I was a little younger and a little more naieve. I like to write and it's wierd for a black man to like to write. I mean I don't see a lot of men like me inerested in writing short stories or poems that don't just turn into raps. I never wanted to be a rapper really but it would seem that's where there is a lot of money to be made and so thier is some kind of attraction to it. But mostly I just wanted to tell stories but I don't (for myself ) feel like I am good enough to make money thier either so I simply write for the love of writing. I admit before I started school this year there was a long sabatical from writing anything. It would seem that life outside of this sort of setting doesn't afford a man to do much pleasure writing and other things block your mind from flowing freely but I still love it, it seems.
Today I volunteered some time to the Salvation Army working at thier thrift store from about noon til four and I found pleasure in doing good. It's odd how much my life is changing and how my thoughts about life change with it.
03/06/09
I felt as if he could sense my fear, there seemed to be some sort of nervous tension in the air. I was afraid but I hid my fear under a banner smile. Trying to put forth some sense of togetherness. I had never know anybody who did drugs and so this was a whole new world for me, to do something just to take your mind someplace new I could relate with. But to damage brain and hurt yourself in the process I couldn’t wrap my young mind around no matter how good it might make you feel. I don’t know what else to feel when I am around him now but fear. I don’t want to say the wrong things to him afraid that he might have one of those psychotic breakdowns and try to kill the whole family the way you hear about on the news some tragic nights. I just keep my distance now but the ocean between me and my stepfather hurts. It takes me from one end of a bright and hopeful spectrum to another end and on the other end it is dark and refuses to sparkle at all. I walked on eggshells in my own home trying not to upset anyone but even the best I could do was never enough for him. If someone where to ask him about me he would say that I was in dire need of some discipline and he would be sure to note that he was not going to be the one to instill that in me.
My step father was a paramedic and an alcoholic for years. I can remember coming home from school one day and he and my mother had been in our kitchen fighting and she was bleeding from her nose but I was too small to do anything about it. When my mother saw we were home, she was ready to leave him but she never did. At least not physically, she remained but over the years it seemed like she merley tolerated him as her provider and simply thier she remained. I could not be consoled on the issue I did not consider him to be much of a man and so I acted out. I don't know if it was for the attention or because subconciously I thought he would just leave it I became a problem but there he stayed and throughout the next several years I hated him. He would tell me to do chores and I would promptly ignore his so called authority. I can remember after the first few years he sought sobriety I thought it was all a joke. This in my mind was a madman who used to drink all the time.There was a bottle of Bacardi Rum on top of our refrigerator at all times and the trash can was always full of empty Budweiser bottles. This was a man who was double minded and dangerous. He was a paramedic and certified to train people in Akido, a form of the martial arts. This was a man who wrote poetry and still who could not use words to an affective degree when dealing with my mother or when he was drunk. This was a man who on one side of things wanted to build a family and on the other chose a career that kept him on base for days on end, while we( or at least I) welcomed the break from him.
It had been three years since my father died and in retrospect I never wanted anyone to try and replace him because nobody ever truely could.
My step father was a paramedic and an alcoholic for years. I can remember coming home from school one day and he and my mother had been in our kitchen fighting and she was bleeding from her nose but I was too small to do anything about it. When my mother saw we were home, she was ready to leave him but she never did. At least not physically, she remained but over the years it seemed like she merley tolerated him as her provider and simply thier she remained. I could not be consoled on the issue I did not consider him to be much of a man and so I acted out. I don't know if it was for the attention or because subconciously I thought he would just leave it I became a problem but there he stayed and throughout the next several years I hated him. He would tell me to do chores and I would promptly ignore his so called authority. I can remember after the first few years he sought sobriety I thought it was all a joke. This in my mind was a madman who used to drink all the time.There was a bottle of Bacardi Rum on top of our refrigerator at all times and the trash can was always full of empty Budweiser bottles. This was a man who was double minded and dangerous. He was a paramedic and certified to train people in Akido, a form of the martial arts. This was a man who wrote poetry and still who could not use words to an affective degree when dealing with my mother or when he was drunk. This was a man who on one side of things wanted to build a family and on the other chose a career that kept him on base for days on end, while we( or at least I) welcomed the break from him.
It had been three years since my father died and in retrospect I never wanted anyone to try and replace him because nobody ever truely could.
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