I haven’t posted a poem since I moved here from blogger. So it’s a little overdue.
Since I’ve been talking about sentences a little bit, I thought I should mention the complication that poetry adds. In addition to dividing thoughts by sentence, poetry divides thoughts visually with line breaks. This means that poetry as a form encourages multiple meanings—the line alone and the sentence alone. Often, there is a kind of dialogue between the two meanings as well. When the line breaks and the syntax point to slightly different interpretations, which one wins out?
And if you want to find fancy poetry like that, I encourage you to explore something like “Cartoon Physics.”
In the meantime, you can read this new poem from me.
Paradise High
God slouches at the front of the universe
leaning against his desk, taking roll
with a red pen in his spiral book of life.
He teaches every subject himself,
every grade, every student. He leads
every parent conference appearing
as principal, department head, counselor,
and teacher. At night he walks the halls
alone with a broom and a trach can.
He’s not too grand to pick up
the wad of gum some kid mashed
onto a door frame. He’s not above
using divine elbow grease to scrub
away bathroom graffiti. Sometimes
he finds drawings of himself
cross-eyed with a caption,
“What a dork!†the picture of a fool.
But every morning he’s back
in the cafeteria, handing out
his own body for breakfast
with a pint of 2% milk—
or chocolate if you like.
He wears a Angels ball cap
to keep God hairs out of the food.
He runs the register, too,
though he never makes us pay.
“I’ll get this one,†he says—
and every time we wonder why
there’s a register at all? Why receipts?
When the bells ring, students rush to class
past God the hall monitor into the room
of Mr. God, the teacher. He greets us
by name wherever we are.
But only in his room do we find
a seat while he watches. God’s voice
crackles and pops over the PA
during announcements while God
lines up the hooligans in the hall
to assign tardy detentions.
Every day I hold my breath
when God walks the aisles
in his classroom collecting
our English themes like prayers.
Dear God, I pray I pass.
(Someday, I’m sure the self-deprecation schtick will wear thin for me. Maybe.)
22 comments ↓
I’ve been waiting for a poem! It didn’t really feel like “Mark Goodyear” here without one.
I especially like the part where he finds drawings of himself. Sure can relate from my own teaching days! (Made me feel sad for God.)
Love the poem — especially the line about the “God hairs.”
Today someone wrote something malicious about another person (along with that person’s personal contact info) on the wall in the ladies’ room @ my place of employment. It was awful and dismaying and wasn’t even about anybody I knew, let alone myself. It was also written in permanent marker which resisted elbow grease. So we covered it with a poster until some maintenance-related person can come paint over it.
A high school teacher of mine said that no teacher is worth their salt until a disgruntled student memorialized them on that commemorative plaque also known as the bathroom stall. I found this one etched into such a monument at my workplace, but who can possibly know what it means?
There once was a wordsmith from Texas
Who’s plans changed ‘cause snow was in excess
The meet was not kept,
So Craver, he wept
And hoped for a future nexus
I keep thinking about this poem. I love the imagery in it, especially God at the cafeteria register.
Craver - Maybe Mr. Goodyear heard about your shortcomings in the manners department and felt the treacherous conditions weren’t worth the risk. If he were certain he’d get the royal treatment I’m sure no amount of snow could keep him away.
Heh! No manners, but if he was willing, we could have had an awesome snowball fight out front.
We might even have gotten a poem out of it.
A.M.M., I’ll tell you what. If you ever get a chance to visit us here again, I’ll treat you to a cup our famous office coffee. It tastes like dirt, but supposedly, it cures cancer. Oh, and it causes abnormal hair growth, but these days, when everything has adverse side effects, that’s not so bad.
Oh how I wish I would have seen God in all those places in my high school.
GREAT poem, Marcus! You’ve just captured so many images perfectly.
Craver, I love that Texas nexus poem. Now we need a Lexus to pin it on, in excess.
Yeah, Mark. Nice poem. God in his gracious work everywhere. Just like Charity says, Wish I had seen that in the past.
Marcus
Thanks for sharing the poem. I love this line -
“He runs the register, too,
though he never makes us pay”
What a picture of grace.
Craver,
Thanks for your poem too - how appropriate having been snowed in for the last couple of days. Sure could use some of your coffee as well - sounds like you could give Starbucks a run for the money.
Clearly, I’ve been out of pocket. (I went to Chicago and got stuck in more ways than one.) What a wonderful suprise to see how many comments there are here!
L.L., thanks for the encouragement. I’ll still share poetry here every five to ten posts. The honest truth is that I’ve got a lot of poems in progress right now, but not many ready to share yet.
Llamamomma, thanks for reading! Moses glowed after just seeing God’s back, so I figure having a God hair in your food would be really dangerous.
Jenn, I do not understand bathroom graffiti, but I admit to being strangely fascinated by it. Has anyone ever done a sociological study on the content of bathroom “literature”? It would be interesting to know the % of people who tag and why.
Craver, : (
I was really sad, dude. That day was just an awful one that I don’t want to think about anymore. Hopefully, our mutual friend relayed my condolenscences. Thanks for the limerick! It’s a lost art.
A Musing Mom, it was a really heart wrenching decision. And actually, I think awful office coffee is highly underrated. You know, consider it pure joy when you experience bitterness of any kind.
Charity, God can be in all those places in every high school if we let him be. Sometimes it is a matter of seeing him there. Sometimes it is a matter of being him there. (I know, I know, that’s pretty cheesy.) Glad you liked the poem! Thanks for the encouragment.
Ted, I look forward to the day when we’ll see all the places where God was active and we never knew it.
Andre, thanks. I know Grace is this huge and inconceivable thing that Jesus bought at an incredible cost–but the small images help me get my mind around the idea.
Also, since Craver posted a limerick, everyone should check out the samples from Sense and Nonsense. They are decidedly non-Christian, but thought provoking–especially as an insight into how others view us.
Welcome home!! I was wondering if you were one of the 9-hour-on-the-runway luckies. (Tell me now, so I can either feel sorry for you all the way, or stop lamenting something that never happened.)
Thankfully we were not stuck on the runway for 9 hours. But I was stuck.
Just after I called Al to say it wouldn’t work, we called a cab to head toward a hotel closer to the airport. The drive should have taken 20 minutes. It took 2 1/2 hours.
Which meant once we got to that hotel we were stuck. The commute from our hotel to downtown is normally 10 minutes. It was 90 minutes that night. So I stayed in the room and read.
The next morning (Valentine’s Day), we got out early. Our only delay was the de-icing that took about an hour. But since we had backed out of the gate by a few feet, we technically left “on time.”
You know how that is.
But I was home for Valentine’s dinner last night–and I’ve never been more grateful.
Good. I was also feeling sorry for Amy, but now all is well… you were back in time to give her chocolate.
I hope it’s alright to comment. For some reason your poem left me on the brink of emotional. I guess ‘Paradise High’ brought me back to high school and how - pretty much every single day - I was in awe of how exceptionally altruistic you were with everyone (I imagine you’re still this way). Generally, I’m pretty heartbroken about how awful people are sometimes, and it feels like altruism doesn’t exist at all. But, then I think about my mom, and you - the only two people I’ve met on this earth that are just plain good to the bone - and it makes me feel better, like finding a clock to check the time or something.
Thanks for putting the poem up.
I like the thought of “English themes like prayers.” Isn’t that more than half the reason we write, most of the time?
Thanks, L.L. for thinking of me! It may be against some blogging code to post on my husband’s blog to thank one of his commenters, but I appreciate the thought - I was glad to have him home. I did not get chocolate (thank goodness) but I did get some lovely flowers and my wonderful poet back from the North.
Amy
Ally, I’ve been in and out of town for over a week, so I just saw your comment waiting for approval last night.
I miss teaching most when I think about you and a handful of other students. Although, I put myself in the role of a student in this poem, I think I missed an opportunity to find God in the student desks as well.
Certainly, I saw God in you. Your entrepreneurial leadership of the lit mag was nothing short of amazing.
Laurie, I agree. Writing is almost always a kind of prayer. But then, when I’m my best self, everything I do is a kind of prayer. Alas, most of the time I function on autopilot.
Amy, that’s the fun of blogging… it’s make-your-own code! Good to hear from you (albeit, wearing Marcus’ name).
Aha! I didn’t even notice that she did that. Naturally, I ignore my own comments.