TEN

When your friend enticed you to join them this evening with the promise of a “poetry slam,” they said it like it was a good thing.
Naturally, you wondered to yourself, “What exactly is a poetry slam?” but then, not wanting to let on you didn’t know, naïvely said of course you’d join them, because those things are awesome, right? At least they sound like it.
And when the Colonel asked, “Who has never been to a poetry slam before?” he said it like it was no big deal. And you, naively, raised a sheepish hand, believing that would be the end of your participation for the night.
And suddenly you find yourself, whiteboard in hand, trying to figure out on the fly how to judge a poetry slam.

We’ve all been there. That’s why, tonight, we’re making you do it.
But Judges, don’t worry, I’ll make this one easy on you.
This poem - Is a TEN.
Each element laid out like a street map
Where all roads lead to TEN.

No doubt you’ve figured out by now
that rhyme is not required, although a little alliteration is always allowable, and it never hurts to add little flourish, maybe cap it off with a couplet for good measure.

With a ten, the poet identifies and connects with his audience. I didn’t write this with you in mind. I wrote it JUST FOR YOU. Now be honest, when was the last time a complete stranger (Who wasn’t stalking you) wrote you any poem at all? TEN.

A TEN crafts cadence and pauses
Smooth or choppy, these are the tracks guiding this rollercoaster from the lump in your throat to the pit of your stomach. But you know even in those first moments you’ll want to ride it again, because it keeps
Stirring memories.
A summer day in 1984.
First one into the house when we got home from shopping.
I had my own key.
Time to take the dog out, but she didn’t greet me at the door.
I found her in the basement.
Lying in a puddle.
She wouldn’t wake up when I called her. She was cold.
My dog was only two years old.
I? I was TEN.

But a TEN will never leave you
In the basement.
No, It comes alongside you in your empathy,
puts a nice, warm metaphor around your shoulders,
and points you hopefully upward with a simile like the best friend you never knew.
It will never tell you that simile is a metaphor, though it may tell you a simile is like a metaphor. TEN

You know a TEN when you hear it, because you can laugh along at the inside jokes even when you have no idea what they are about. The same way you feel completely comfortable calling Marc “the Colonel” though you’ve spent the whole night asking yourself, “What exactly is he the Colonel OF? Because I wasn’t paying attention.”
See what I mean? TEN

And when the people around you are all shouting out the words to a brand new poem you know it’s a TEN ‘cause it’s
Just That Good.
I know you’ll do fine; next time you invite your friend to a poetry slam, Remember: don’t tell them what they’re in for.
And now judges before you suspect I’ve messed up let
Me remind you this TEN ends with a rhyming coup-let.

We are the poets

(GRIEF)
We are the heart-wrenchers,
Our every syllable infused with more anguish than the last.
You will weep for us as we never wept ourselves
And thank us for it afterward.

(SCORN)
We are the tongue-cluckers.
Our brand of scorn could make you hate Mother Theresa.
Wielding our power through diction and pauses
We will burn you if you cross us.

(MORTIFICATION)
We are the blush-wranglers
On our home course, “too much information” is barely par.
Spewing intimate secrets like Mardi Gras beads,
I showed you mine. You know how it works.

(RAGE)
We are the riot-starters,
Bellows for the bonfire of discontent,
Spearhead of this revolution, first ones jailed in the next one
Here’s your spray paint, here’s your rock to throw.

(MIRTH)
We are the belly-shakers.
Our smiling words the menacing hands that lunge for your throat
And when your heart leaps into it, we wink at you.
Tickle tickle!

(PASSION)
We are the heartstring-pluckers.
Your most sensitive notes resonate at our fingertips.
Wooing you with sonnets we wrote to someone else.
Let you think you could be so lucky.

(DECEPTION)
We are the wool-pullers
Our reality fabricated conveniently for deception
Convincing you of truths you know to be false.
You never noticed leaving Kansas.

(FAME)
We are the poets.
Applauded in this venue, yet nameless beyond these doors.
Parsing out our 15 minutes of fame
180 seconds at a time.

Daylight Savings

Sprung forward as if for gold,
Hands seize time to clean and prune til dusk;
I like my daylights living.

Martyr

If only I'd been there.
Your face could have made me an award-winning photojournalist, overnight.
One click of my shutter,
Macro zoom,
Wide angle,
Short depth of field
Timed perfectly.
It would have been brilliant.
Your face
After feigning sleep for hours
Arm shifting uncomfortably beneath the flimsy blanket they gave you

One shot. Not yet…
Waiting those crucial seconds,
I would not flinch when the loud pop rang out,
Startling everyone
Your eyes suddenly open
Darting to the left, down, left
Brow furrowed
Nostrils flared at the first waft of smoke
Mouth horridly agape
Pupils dilating with the realization that this is not paradise.
Click.
One picture of the underwear bomber,
Cover of both Time and Newsweek
I could have become famous on your failure.
I never would have taken it.
I'm glad they caught you trying to kill them.
Your safety belt was still fastened
Because, you never know when your plane might crash.
Hand still in your pants
Clutching a melting acid syringe
Smoke billowing from your lap, then flames.
You pretended as though you didn't know what was happening.
Liar, Liar. Your pants betray you.

Fodder for the late-night talk shows
They started calling you Captain Underpants
It was funny.
It wouldn't have been.

Young man, I don't know how you pronounce the words,
But where I come from there's a difference between MARTYR and MURDER.
They say you went to good schools,
But what your friends in Yemen didn't teach you
Is that martyrs only become martyrs by being killed for defending their beliefs.
Killed.
By another person.
You can't kill yourself and call it persecution.
It doesn't work that way.
You tried to kill strangers.
Christians and Muslims.
Men, women, and children.
Who on that plane even thought they were at war with you?
Ignorant of their personal politics,
But so willing to end their lives.
So sure the next sight you would see was paradise.
There are no virgins for you!
There never would have been.
No God would reward such a slaughter.
How dare they tell you it would make you a martyr?

I'd have put down the camera to stop you.
Foregone the photo,
Risked my life to save many.
I will never be a passive victim.
So bring it, if you're gonna.
Make me a martyr.
Let me die standing up for what I believe,
In the defense of the defenseless,
Speaking out against injustice,
And not flinching.
Let me die for showing compassion,
Reaching out to the hurting, like you,
Living outside of my comfort zone.
Daring to one day forgive such an atrocity.
If you're going to kill us,
Let me live my last days,
My last moments in the footsteps of Jesus
A man you call "Prophet"
Who said "Blessed are the peacemakers...
...for they will be called the sons of God."
Make me a martyr.
Because you're sure not going to make me a photojournalist.

David

I never really loved my father in law.
I loved his daughter, as did he.
This topped the short list of our common interests.

David was a truck driver
He listened to warbly southern gospel
Ate grits
And put meat gravy on his pancakes.
Flags mounted on his Suburban like some hillbilly diplomat.
Perking up his ears at every "yee-haw"
Born and raised in the great southern state
Of New Jersey.

The only man I've known to say "humbug" and mean it,
David regularly expressed disapproval with an half-syllable sentence
"E'h!"
Again, and again
"E'h!"
He disapproved of many things.
The majority of which involved others telling him not to push himself, with all of his health issues.
I never cared for that noise.

He had never finished high school
And fumbled with words
But began devouring books in his 60s.
David read slowly, but patiently paged through thick biographies of our early presidents.
He admired John Adams, and held John Quincy in high regard.
He was sure it was my fault that his daughter stopped voting republican.
She was a social worker.
I had nothing to do with it.

I tried hard, at first,
Before meeting the parents,
Studied the rules of pinochle, his game of choice, to impress him.
I'd never played but spent days
Cramming strategy guides, only to find he played by "family rules."
It was different,
The strategies useless.
We played every time he visited, and he usually won.
If I was lucky, he would wear his teeth during the game.

Shaking his head when I tried to explain my fantasy football team,
Because that's not how football's supposed to be played,
This man had the nerve to sit in my house, on my couch,
Routing for his Giants to beat my Pats in the Superbowl,
Which, they did.
He wore that championship cap so proudly.
That cap, his large belt buckles, and grungy, sleveless flannel shirts,
Grease under his fingernails and his calloused palms
He made me ashamed of my own hands,
Soft and weak

I gave up trying.
I could identify with neither his gruffness, nor his affection.
He cuddled his grandbabies for as long as they'd let him,
Gave loud, smacking kisses.
The sound grated on me.
At our wedding, he kissed his daughter more than I did.
I cringed each time.
It seemed there was something wrong with that,
But she didn't mind.
He knew the importance of faith and family.
He said "humbug" at Christmas
Not because of the holiday
But because of what we'd done to it.
It wasn't about the presents.
And it took me far too long to see where his heart was.

A lifelong trucker and utilitarian packrat,
David knew to keep things that might one day be useful to someone.
He kept everything.
He never had much,
But would always try to give what he could.
Even the filthy sleveless flannel shirt off his back
To anyone desperate enough to ask for it.
Had our first daughter been a son,
We planned to name the boy after David's father.
When we told him, he cried.
He adored our daughter just the same.

When his heart went bad, he took school bus routes
And started rummaging through our recycling bin when he visited.
David saved bags of tabs from soda cans for a little girl on his bus.
She collected them to trade in for her aunt's dialysis.
He was proud when he could make her smile

Too stubborn to let illness get the better of him, David started walking.
Through dizzy spells and headaches, he navigated country roads at all hours,
Building stamina, losing weight.
The doctor told him he had the heart of a much younger man.

They say he fell down.
Out for a walk, for his health,
A decade after the bypass
He was healthier than ever.
They thought perhaps he slipped
Tripped somehow
This man who climbed broken ladders one-handed
Took risks I would never dare without a second thought
And came out unscathed every time.
They said he fell down.

They didn't know him.
Were they even at the scene?
On a flat stretch of country road.
He just
Fell
Hit the back of his head that hard.
We never got to say goodbye.
Never said the things I should have said
Made amends. Asked forgiveness.

He would have loved our baby girl.
She's a snuggler, unlike her big sister.
Her middle name is Quin.
Short for Quincy.
After her Pop Pop's daddy
And our sixth President.
I give her loud, smacking kisses.
It makes her smile.

I never really loved my father in law
Not like I should have.
I will try to be a good father to her.
Teach her the values of faith and family.
David would be pleased with that.
And somehow, she knows him.
She is stubborn like her grandfather.
Just before I cut her umbilical cord,
Gripping scissors with my own soft hands,
Preparing to separate her forever from her first home,
She expressed her disapproval.
Her first sound was "E'h!"