Tanka

Bright, sunny day out
As my vacation concludes
I want to stay in
To relax just one more day
With nothing to do--nothing

©2008-Art Belliveau

Self Portrait 4/18/08

Bearlike scholar
wild and tame
Entertainer's surface
hides tiger-trap mind
Shallow, silly wordplay
disguises hidden depths of spirit
Innocent questions
lead to labyrinths of thought
What you see
Ain't all that I got

©2008-Art Belliveau

Seeking the Impossible

I read:
fiction
nonfiction
poetry
science
religion
blogs
opinions

because I want to understand.

I write:
poetry
fiction
nonfiction
opinion
blogs

because I want to understand.

I speak with:
scholars
students
teachers
priests
friends
strangers
scientists

because I want to understand.

I work at it incessantly.
I try to put disparate pieces
into some meaningful array.

I doubt that it will ever happen.

But still--

I want to understand.

©2008-Art Belliveau

Looking for a Poem

I read in a poem
that poems hide
so early this morning
I went looking for one

I stood in the
bizarrely chilly
Alabama April predawn
looking at a bushful of
purple-pink azaleas
beneath a dogwood tree
blooming white.
Surely, I thought,
a poem must be hiding there.

I waited,
regretting not putting on a coat.
And waited,
wondering what had gone wrong
with the weather that
it was so close to freezing.
And waited.
But the little effer
refused to come out,
if indeed
it had been hiding there
at all.

So I went inside
and warmed up.

Maybe in the pile of dirty dishes
I had decided the night before
to put off until today.
A nice little domestic poem
could be hiding in there.
So I pushed the dished around,
looking. I found
nothing but fetid water
hardened grease.
Plates with food cemented on
where I had forgotten to
soak them.
But a poem?
Nada.
Damn! There had
to be one somewhere.

I wasted my whole
day
trying to find that one
damn hidden poem.
I looked everywhere:
in my daughter’s eyes
and laughter--
in the dirt between
her toes and her newly
painted toenails;
in my dogs
eating their meals;
in the dirty laundry and
under the garbage cans.

Nothing.

Finally, as I was about to give up,
and go to bed empty-handed,
I realized something.

Poems aren’t always beautiful
or even comfortable
sometimes they just are
and sometimes the quest itself
becomes the poem

©2008-Art Belliveau

Tuesday’s Poem

I awake
in my bed
in the early
evening
from a nap taken
post-colonoscopy

In my head is
a poem
half remembered
written in a
dream

the words are
erased by the
sour smell of
stale urine
drifting in from
the open
bathroom door

©2008-Art Belliveau

Monday’s Poem

Monday’s poem arrives
Late, as usual for a Monday.
Rude, no apologies,
“I’m here already,
Get off my frickin’ back!”

It is late and Monday’s poem
Could not care less
If offered money to do so.
“You should be glad
I came at all.
I could have stayed
in bed.”

Ironically
until the arrival of
Monday’s poem,
I could not go to bed myself.
But now that the little
S.O.B. has finally shown up
I can leave the computer
And get some rest

©2008-Art Belliveau

Double Trouble

Double negatives,
We are taught,
Imply together
A positive thought.

Like two negative numbers,
When multiplied,
Always come out positive
On the other side.

But it doesn’t seem to work
The other way around.
Is there a double positive
Out there to be found?

When two positives are used
In a sentence together,
Shouldn’t that mean a negative?
Or is that too clever?

The English professors say
"Never happens," then sit tight.
All I can say to that is--
Yeah, right.

©2008-Art Belliveau

A Usage Lesson, Long Ago

“If you don’t have nothing,”
I asked the drowsy class of
seventh graders, in the period
right before lunch,
“What do you have?”

“Nothing,” came the
listless reply.
And they fell into my trap.

“No,” I said.
“That can’t be right.
You don’t have nothing.
So what do you have?”

One or two
roused from the prelunch
stupor and said more insistently,
and more slowly,
as though speaking to someone who’s
a little bit slow, “No-thing.”
Then heads descended again,
confident that this time
I must have understood.

“No,” I said again,
“You Don’t Have nothing.
What do you Have?”

And for the first time
in a long time
I began to see the light bulbs
as they shone above a few heads.

“Something!” One called out.
“Yeah, if I don’t have nothing,
I must have something!”
Agreed another.

Most still looked confused,
annoyed at being awakened this way.
Annoyed that others were now
getting it wrong as well as that
goofy teacher.

And those that got it
began to quiz their friends
a note of exasperation
and hinting in their voices.

“C’mon! Figure it out.
If you don’t have nothing,
what do you have?”

And like a slow moving virus
it moved around the room.
Newly interested students
who got no more of a hint than that
began to get it, too.

And so for the next week or so,
until all had it figured out,
I was greeted in the hallway
before and after school,
between classes,
with new light bulbs.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!
If I don’t have nothing,
I have something!”

And after that lesson,
I had something, too.

©2008-Art Belliveau

Found Poem Variation

On Friday in my class we worked on a version of found poetry. I put the lesson on my teacher blog. Here is the poem I wrote from the words I cut out on Friday. I will italicize the found words in this version of the poem. Maybe after I put it together in its “publication draft” form I will be able to take a pic and post it here.

When meeting new people
How do I begin cracking the ice?

How do I loosen my control?

Is there some secret art that
helps to supercharge full disclosure?

And, if so, do I even want to know it?

Maybe if I concentrate on
improving my focus,

If I travel the path between
proffering false praise
or being overly critical,

I just might find there is no magical way
for souls to become
familiar
with one another.

Except through time
and the real power
of honesty.

©2008-Art Belliveau

Friday, Fourth Block

Friday, Fourth Block

Speaking in a voice,
No one wants to hear

Spreading a message,
No one wants to receive

An analog signal
Sent to a digital receiver

Just a place to be,
Until the buses arrive.

©2008-Art Belliveau