And Just Like that It's the 12th of April. A Sunday Where the #VerseLove Traditions Continue & I Am Dreaming of Slower Days Ahead.

Love this time of year when the neighborhood fox are funning between houses to find food for their kids. They are stunning creatures and when I spot one, I can't help but follow it with my eyes as long as I can.

I'm off to the University again this morning as this weekend is admitted students day and the flock to get more information about the year ahead. I'm the one who signed up to represent our school once again, and I'm already rubbing my eyes with exhaustion. It would be nice if others would join the work from time to time. 

It's still sunny, although it's also still windy and cold; perhaps my favorite time of the year. My lawn really needs mowing, but I've decided not to do it until this upcoming weekend because I really don't have any more time to give in a day than I'm already giving. 

Yes, it must be April.

It Must Be April  

b.r.crandall

Saturdays aren’t for meant showers.

Those birds singing on neighborhood trees

aren’t wearing tuxedos, after all….

skunks aren’t smelling like apple pies. 

I probably should care more

about how alley cats clean themselves, though.

because I keep the tweezers in a vanity,

behind a bathroom mirror I try to avoid.

Landscaping on weekends is not for this man.

I’d rather be basking in distractions,

with procrastinations to my habitual multitasking.

man sipping coffee 

barefoot in a ripped t-shirt

and his navy pair of Fruit of the Looms.

Thankful to miss today’s generation of manity insanity 

that zest for jawlines & skin care.

I learned long ago to hug lifelong flaws 

which include the ways love

has handled my stomach.

In the card catalogue of bodily complaints,

these hairy man boobs have become a fave.

Yet, when I was younger I bucked differently…

laced Sauconies and weighed all prose & consof youth 

(wasted on the young).

I shawled myself with preparations

as Talking Heads taught me to do…

  how did I get here? 

But then I think about the seeds. This soil. Our Sun.

Getting these fingers into the ground  (such a dirty mind),

to plant possibilities for another day,

so future seedlings can transcend this Earth, too,

where they, perhaps (maybe) (hmmm), might

bloom in gorgeous greenery

before they’re clipped

or taken

by frost.

To Whom It May Concerned. #VerseLove Continues. I'm Pacing Myself. Always Love the Month of Poetry & Transition to Spring.

It's Saturday. What a week! What a month! What a semester. Congratulation to all the MidYork teams who made it to finals and to my alma mater for almost...almost...making it to finals. They were out, I believe, my a tenth of a point. Always an accomplishment after so much time, energy, money, practice, and commitment. There's just something about Sport of the Arts that remains in my curiosity of what it means to be human. 

Yesterday's prompt was to write a Love Letter to a place, but I opted to think about the Long Island Sound, the week ahead, and the programming that has been long in the coming. Perhaps this will be my tribute to the Walt Whitman work. We'll see what comes from an afternoon on the Sound. 

But I really need to grade. My left hip doesn't like all the sitting that comes with a grading life. C'est la vie. But we're winding down the semester and I need to stay on top of it all. Here's also to the wonderful tea gathering yesterday at the local tea house with Michelle and Beth. It's a treasure and I've only walked inside twice (spending a gift card on chai to end a hectic work week). 

To Whom It May Concern; 

I’m writing to acknowledge

that illusion of fires at St. Elmo’s

were meant to be momentary,

to perpetuate lawyer lives,

and additional yuppy myths

to get us 90s kids 

to see a need for college

& to lure our brat packs 

into pre-grunge love stories. 

Winona tells it better, though.

Reality bites, and that is why 

I’ve always loved the sea

& Edie Brickel, 

(but man, she left me

to shoot rubber bands

at the moon with those other

bohemians & now I’m walking

barefoot in the sand

without her hand to hold).

I’m more water than land,

anyways: Oneida, Lebanon,

St. Lawrence, the Atlantic.

I’ve cheated on Danish fjords

with Bays of Tintagel. 

I left rivers of Kentucky for sounds

of Long Island.

 

Anyways, next week, we’re gathering 

to sing songs of ourselves

with Whitman

I don’t know about you, 

but I need to feel leaves of grass

between my toes again. 

They’ve been ready to 

thaw for months,  

and I’d love for you to join us.

I’ll bring the notebooks.

Perhaps we will

fall in love, again.

~Bryan, the Geek-boy Frog

Okay Friday, #VerseLove Continuing, Papers Needing to be Graded, No Classes to Teach, A Tremendous Desire to Unwind

Yesterday was my turn to host #VerseLove, where I invited writers to think about "Home" / "Hogre" in reference to a new picture book by Matt de la Pena and Loren Long. We used it with writers last summer, and I always finds home-prompts get writers going in multiple ways that surprises them The Class of 1990 lost another North Star this week and I'm thinking about how fortunate some of us to have shared a home in Cicero-North Syracuse that, albeit it bumpy, was also smooth and soft for the most part. Weston and I were talking last night about how we didn't have the worries of today's kids. Parents could trust us on the streets, usually knowing someone else's parents were probably keeping an eye out for us. We had tremendous freedom and innocence. It's almost har to imagine now (or maybe we all reminisce about childhood as a better time.

As host yesterday, I also got to read from teacher writers across the nation and leave feedback on how they poetically responded. It made for a long, productive day with a break to go to my office and another to fetch a burrito. 

Humming 

~b.r.crandall

 

At first it was childhood,

Utica greens & chicken riggies,

the songs of an empty refrigerator box

becoming a castle radiant enough for sister Queens…

…a time for learning puppy breath on cold, linoleum floors 

and finding warmth wrapped in towels after a day of swimming --- 

(when she waved willow branches to swat porch flies 

while the stars bathed in the lake).

I see the sun and the sun sees me.

Я бачу сонце, і сонце бачить мене.

We buzzed along mental maps of Cherry Heights,

peddling ten-speeds in high tops, 

feathering hair with wiffleballs & pig skins,

telling truths and daring one another

with Milwaukee’s Best stolen from a father’s fridge.

 

This before I found silence as a lonely Londoner -

before the Danish winds taught me to sip Tuborgs in a skurvogn,

smukke solnedgange langs fjorden,

& to maneuver my mouth like a magpie: 

Pen Oos, Vahgeena, 

Ah Noos, & Svinek Ter

 

Walking along Beargrass Creek

I learned to fiddle with Kentucky bluegrass,

the stories of room 301,

Tommy Tuesdays, David Dursdays - the miracle of Brown.

And would one day get used to hiss-snakes

in the wood piles that humored my doctoral studies,

(needing that sanctuary of an Amalfi-drive pool).

 

These days, the simplicity of a blanket matters most, 

times when the light teases the dog curled besides me

with the hymnals she sings through whimpers…

And I find myself humming, too,

about being harbored…to finally have a home…

…even as monsters set out to destroy them. 

Take a Phrase. Write It Down. Then, Explain the Phrase as a Poet Would. That Was Yesterday's Morning Challenge (Today, It's Trying to Wake Up)

I was up by five. But for some reason, I kept trying to fall back to sleep. I succeeded and ended up waking at 7:30 rather groggy. This is why we need coffee. I taught late last night (so wonderful to drive home in daylight again and then calmed my fast-moving brain down with a couple episodes of the show Scrubs, which is back with older characters. It's funny and fascinating on multiple levels.

Today, I need to visit schools, prep for an insane week ahead, and grade once again. Much to do in little time. I also want to build a new book shelf, but that is another story for another day. 

Also woke up yesterday to no water. Pipe break downtown I guess, so we were out for the day. When it finally came back on it make horrendous noises and shared two minutes of rusty water. The joys of home ownership. My first reaction was to run down the basement stairs to make sure it wasn't a burst in my own house. That would have sucked. Everything worked out and the evening class was a success, too. Now, onto the Thursday agenda. 

It’s All Good 

b.r.crandall

In habit I say, It’s all good,

but I know the poets see me,

ask their questions with spirited spit-fire…

the what-abouts - the nuclear codes,

that thing about global warming, 

the gasoline, hangnails, anxiety — 

all the ways we make 

being human illegal & 

their preference for blaming

the brown, the foreign,

the poor with historical 

narratives they tell themselves.

This morning, another round 

of excuses arrived, actually.

Aneurysms, assessment-eating

canines, molars with too much 

wisdom. Youth, being wasted

on the young. The privileged.

It is what it is.

Still, there’s hope in wheels with meals,

deliveries of satiated survival,

to sustain another day.

empathy. care. kindness. love.

Actions speak louder than words

& I’ve learned to Shout from Laurie —

it’s an upstate NY thing.

Just Inhale. Exhale. Write.

It’s all good. 

It has to be. 

Because I’m back in Connecticut.

There’s so much work to be done.

Well, the Anxiety Closet Opened Up and Unleashed While Trying to Sleep Monday Night. Guess the Last Few Weeks are Catching Up

Of course, none of my streaming packages came with the UCONN/Michigan game, so I listened to is via online radio stations. I didn't make it to 2nd half, though, because I needed sleep...which I got for about an hour and then woke up in a panic processing all needing to be done and worrying about all back at my parental home front. I got very sporadic sleep, knowing I needed to spend most of yesterday prepping for classes and getting the house in livable shape (like juice in the fridge and bread). 

I'm hoping for much better sleep tonight. I can't imagine my body could do to me what it did last night. It reminded me of my late 20s when I couldn't sleep for the life of me...manic brain always on the go-go-go.

Speaking of, yesterday's #VerseLove26 prompt was simple. Find a photo...use it as a subject and begging with an alliterative line and end with one, too. I have a whole series of my parents sleeping with Karal besides them, but went with the day dad was bribed to shave with Apple pie and fritters. Whatever it takes. It was a playful prompt, so I went with a playful response. 

Meanwhile, I'm daydreaming about a pillow.

Doobie Doo 

Ding-Dong Dilly-dallying, Doodle-Day Dumbass

Dad bathed, had a shave,

poetically-thrilled to dance & rave,

Departure done, dog in toe,

Meals on wheels,

go-go-go.

whoa! whoa! whoa!

a quick return,

cabinets bare, spend what I earn,

alarmingly-panicked, it’s back to work

need a shower, clean hair a perk.

Bing-bong, bippity-boo, babbling Bry, do as I do.