Today seems like a milestone day. 400 poems, for instance. It’s taken 8 years, but that doesn’t seem too shabby of a record. That’s 50 poems a year. And here’s a smaller number, but a milestone, nevertheless: I have made it through the first two days–or one time through the entire schedule–of hybrid teaching. I’m still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Today was a smoother experience, in part because I taught two online classes and one class in-person, whereas yesterday it was the opposite, a decidedly more difficult schedule. Other factors, too, made for a better day, not the least of which was that I felt pretty sure that I knew what I was doing. While we’ve been talking about teaching nightmares, that one is the worst: the feeling that you don’t know what you’re doing. I wonder if I could find a description and a name for that feeling in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which is where we are to find inspiration today for a poem. Nope, not at least in the amount of time I was willing to spend there. It’s a great resource, a great website, but it’s difficult to know where to begin. I think I’ll just grab a bunch. Let’s make a list poem.
Poem for April 27
Here’s a list of all my obscure sorrows.
Looking up at the stars in a clear sky
I can’t help but feel degrassé,
and every time I look at my parked
travel trailer: a serious case of the wends.
I get all meledro whenever I read Dickinson,
and lately, watching the news, I’m a full-on
anthrodyniac. I spread my arms
and flap and get no results: mahpiohanzia.
Good days, perfect moments, ecstatic ones
are sometimes packed in kairosclerosis,
while several heartworms peck at me
from twenty or thirty years ago.
Some extended periods of chrysalism,
a tilt shift every once in a while when
making accounts of the accomplishments,
and then jouska all the time, making my case.
The fata organa at strangers across the room,
agnosthesia, again.
michael jarmer 