atwill | Entries tagged with napowrimo

SUMMER CRUSH; or, EARWORM
To the tune of Moves Like Jagger

GIRL #1

I failed every class
Spring semester
At school I’m just ass
A bad tester

My SAT blank
My GPA tanked
My parents are cranks

They’re making me take
Summer session
Well maybe I’ll shake
This depression

The first day of class
I saw your fine ass
Depression is past

Don’t know who I am
A girl who’s too scared to approach you
Or the type to think she can coach you
Will I swoon or swagger
Will I swoon or swagger
Will I swoon and moon this afternoon in June or swagger

I can’t dare myself to approach you
Can’t act like I think I could coach you
Guess I’ll swoon not swagger
Guess I’ll swoon not swagger
Guess I’ll swoon and moon this afternoon in June not swagger

I sit at the back
Of the classroom
You like to wear black
But you still bloom

The prettiest rose
My crush only grows
(The teacher he knows 😬)

Today is the day
I’ve decided
That I’m gonna say
What’s in my head

Catch you after class
And I’ll make a pass
But I’m such an ass

Don’t know who I am
A girl who’s too scared to approach you
Or the type to think she can coach you
Will I swoon or swagger
Will I swoon or swagger
Will I swoon and moon this afternoon in June or swagger

I should dare myself to approach you
And act like I think I could coach you
I won’t swoon but swagger
I won’t swoon but swagger
I won’t swoon and moon this afternoon in June but swagger

GIRL #2

I see you blush
When you look my way
You’ve got a crush
And I’m also gay

I think you’re super cute too
So come on make a move, you
(Surprise the teacher who knew)

You got a touch
Of bad attitude
But not too much
I know you won’t be crude

You ain’t got nothing to prove
So come on make a move, you
(Let’s shock the teacher who knew)

GIRL #1

Don’t know who I am
A girl who’s too scared to approach you
Or the type to think she can coach you
Will I swoon or swagger
Will I swoon or swagger
Will I swoon and moon this afternoon in June or swagger

Gonna make the choice to approach you
Not act like I think I could coach you
Neither swoon nor swagger
Neither swoon nor swagger
Neither swoon and moon this afternoon in June nor swagger 🙌

See Shelley's Ode to the West Wind.

ODE TO ANGER

I.

Apostrophizing odes are out of fashion.
Unstirred by glories in the natural world,
I summon not the west wind but the passion

Roused when we sense that’s not right. Once I hurled
A book against the wall (it’s by a man)
When anger finally choked decorum: furled

Rage let to fly then saw its crimson span
The sky! There’s not much in the universe
I’m sure of, but I’m sure of this: rage can

Be righteous—cleansing—turning us not worse
But better. Anger is the only right
Reaction to misogyny. I nurse

My rage because, flaming, it lights my sight.
My rage is what moves me to fight the night.

II.

Our first and visceral reaction—fear—
Is hardly wrong: misogyny can kill.
This happened: Armed with knives and guns and sheer

Conviction—ready to die on that hill—
This is revenge because he can’t get laid—
A man murdered six people. Incels thrill

To his fulfillment of their shared crusade,
Of which rape culture is both root and fruit.
It stands to more than reason we’re afraid:

It stands to things the way they are. As brute
Reality daily legitimates
Our fear, we take precautions: it’s astute.

The way things are: Take care. Don’t tempt the fates.
The way things are: This rhetoric? It grates.

III.

It’s used to justify the way things are
By those who also say “Boys will be boys.”
Sexual harassment and assault? Just par

For the course set by evolution! Ploys
Like these to vindicate the status quo
Treat it as fixed—a natural equipoise—

The best society can do. To show
This reasoning up isn’t the point—it’s not
As if the people using it don’t know

Of their bad faith. Instead, let’s keep the thought
Burning that things the way they are demand
Both change and rage. It’s only battles fought

That can be won, and it’s our anger fanned
To white heat that drives—and revives—our stand.

IV.

Because despair is always ready. Hope
Tries to sustain itself: as violence makes
Advances, more and more falls in its scope—

Misogyny is just one form hate takes,
And sexism is only one among
The axes of oppression. What awakes

A given person’s conscience? What words sung
In what tongue penetrate one’s consciousness?
Whatever does it, consciousness once stung

To conscience grows, until we see and stress
The intertwinement of oppressions. Thrash
Them all: communities must coalesce.

—Let hope take heart as we unite! Refashion
The way things are—says anger—and compassion.

V.

Emotions fire the push for social change—
Community relights the passing torch
Between its bearers singly tired—the range

To be traversed is vast—and gives us porch
And perch—both shelter and high ground—where we
Set education to its work. The scorch-

And-salt approach is just one strategy,
One mindset, one tool in the ample box.
To learn and teach and research is to see

Always further and better—conscience knocks
On the more doors the more our work gains traction.
That verse can do this work—can swell our flocks—

That writing poems reifies abstraction—
I learned from you—whose Ode inspired this action.

It was love at first sight: his name was John.
We met over diamonds at Tiffany’s,
Where he was looking for a gift. His wife
Never knew what she missed. The pendant hit
My neck at just the spot to most become
The line and arc and hollow of my throat.

The marquise diamonds gleaming at my throat
Composed a star. “As you’re a star,” said John,
“Lighting my night so brightly it’s become
“The day.” I left the job at Tiffany’s:
The carrot was the latest Broadway hit.
Hoteliers knew to treat me as his wife.

At times, I thought about her, his real wife.
At times, my fingers idling at my throat
Would graze the pendant, and the guilt would hit:
I’d stolen more than diamonds from her. John
Called me the brightest jewel at Tiffany’s.
And for love of him, that’s what I’d become.

I told him, or tried: “I think we become
“What we love the most.” He laughed. “Then my wife
“Would be me. My shopgirl from Tiffany’s
“Would then leave me and go to her.” My throat
Closed up at that. “I’ll never leave you, John.”
If he meant it to hurt, he scored a hit.

But that was once, and I sustained the hit.
We traveled less. I asked. “Yes, she’s become
“Suspicious,” he said, too casually. “John—”
“Hush. Jessica may be my jealous wife
“But you’re my star. Come on.” He touched my throat.
“Let’s get you something new at Tiffany’s.”

This time he bought me pearls at Tiffany’s.
On the way out, he started, as if hit.
I knew her right away. Hand at her throat,
She studied me. “Well, those pearls do become
“You more than they would me. I’m just the wife.”
He stepped between us. “Jessica—“ “Stop, John.

“I’ve cast the john, the whore—and now the wife.
“Your lovely-throated girl from Tiffany’s
“Will make my film—‘Becoming Me’—a hit.”

I dreamed God made the world. He had no choice:
Creation is the overflow of his
Perfection. I dreamed Lucifer of all
The angels had the finest eyes, the most
Exquisite sensibility, and so
In all creation it was he who loved
God best. When God became enamored of
The tiny, fallible creatures on Earth
He broke Lucifer’s heart: perfection proved
Itself the opposite. And this is why
The Lightbringer, the Morningstar, moment
By moment chooses Hell—which—I dreamed—is
No more, no less, than the absence of God.

CAPITALISM SPEAKS

Aestheticize
Size.

Knead
Need.

Profit
Off it.

For the rich
Taxes
Ax.

For the poor
Spending
"Pending."

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