haiku

a dead long leaf pine
leans on its living brother--
how long 'til it falls?


 ©2013-Art Belliveau

Testy

The desks are set up,
Each row straight.
As we prepare for
The test we hate.
I doubt that this,
Is worth the cost:
Another day
Of learning lost.


 ©2013-Art Belliveau

Portrait Poem

I'm a grumpy old guy who's tired of the nonsense.
I wonder what it will take for my students to take their education seriously.
I hear students continually talking no matter what the consequence.
I see students wandering out of their seats as though they had permission.
I want them to care about what I am teaching. I want to care about what I'm teaching.
I'm a grumpy old guy who's tired of the nonsense.

I pretend that I still have some patience left.
I feel the temptation to softly and silently slip away.
I touch the limits of my endurance.
I worry about the ones who will never reach their full potential.
I cry out impatient, sarcastic shouts of vexation.
I'm a grumpy old guy who's tired of the nonsense.

I understand that there is only so much I can do.
I say every one of my students has the ability to succeed.
I dream that they will actually live up to that ability and use it to its fullest.
I try to get them to the point where they will be successful beyond me.
I hope they all live out their dreams.
I'm a grumpy old guy who's tired of the nonsense.


©2013-Art Belliveau

Pantoum--Friday Afternoons Are Deadly

Friday afternoons are deadly.
The week’s frustrations have built up pressure
Like a faulty radiator.
The classroom seems ready to explode.

The week’s frustrations have built up pressure.
We need to do something new and different because
The classroom seems ready to explode.
And that isn’t good for anyone.

We need to do something new and different because
We all are stuck in the same old rut.
And that isn’t good for anyone.
Least of all me, the teacher.

We all are stuck in the same old rut.
No one wants to be here.
Least of all me, the teacher.
We need to blow off some steam.

No one wants to be here.
Like a faulty radiator,
We need to blow off some steam.
Friday afternoons are deadly.

 ©2013-Art Belliveau

tanka

feeling trapped again
life, a bear trap, biting me
i see others fly
my own wings long to break free
all it would take is courage

 ©2013-Art Belliveau

senryu

the scratch of my pen
as i write in my journal
a sound from the past


 ©2013-Art Belliveau

teaching? --a senryu

i no longer teach.
i "deliver instruction."
that's very diff'rent.


©2013-Art Belliveau

senryu 3/2/13

i reached nine hundred.
i stopped without explaining--
even to myself.


©2013-Art Belliveau

Invader to Poison Ivy 01/18/12

This is a weird experiment. I read about a poem type called "n + 7." Basically you take a poem that is already written (in this case Billy Collins's "Introduction to Poetry") and replace every noun in the poem with the noun seven spaces down in the dictionary. I used the Thorndike Barnhart Intermediate Dictionary from the 1970's. First I will link to Collins's poem and then my "n + 7" version of the same.

By the way, this is apparently my 900th post to this blog. I will get to 1000 within the next few months!

Introduction to Poetry

Invader to Poison Ivy

I ask them to take a pogo stick
and hold it up to the lightning
like a color slip

or press an earning against its hobby.

I say drop a mouth piece into a pogo stick
and watch him probe his weal out,

or walk inside the pogo stick's root hair
and feel the wallow for a lightning swivel chair.

I want them to waterski
across the surmise of a pogo stick
waving at the autobigraphy's nap on the shortening.

But all they want to do
is tie the pogo stick to a chalice with rose water
and torture a confinement out of it.

They begin beating it with a hostage
to find out what it really means.



©2012-Art Belliveau

senryu 01/18/12

i hear a "whooshing"
something's flying past my face--
another deadline

©2012-Art Belliveau