KATE
At the First Unitarian Church
Kate sat down on the reversed pew.
We talked about the summer and the future.
She was the knowledge and elf-beauty all along.
*
It is a quarter after ten.
I am sitting in a chair
on the second floor of a bookstore.
My supervisor sits two feet away.
It is supposed to be planning time–
I am supposed to be developing (logistically)
my work at Olney High School West.
But the white sky is shattering in through the windows
and my fingertips still smell gorgeous
from the incense I crushed on them last night
at the Blue Banana where I worked the door.
I am supposed to be working
but I just thought about Baltimore
and I just thought about Kate.
I think about my coworkers and the clouds of chaos.
What does it mean to be “mature”?
Kate has always been sobering for this Old Head.
She always struck me as the enigma.
There is a flow of traffic down below on the street.
There are scruff marks on the carpet
and I remember Kate’s boots, her footwear
before we had to start wearing uniforms.
Her boots reminded me of college.
Two parallel paths meet after angling.
Kate and I were on the Unbreakable team.
What astute professionalism! What meek sense of humor!
Blond champion of our current predicaments!
When spring weather returns I will take some joy
watching all the birds meet on branches.
I will stare at the five-second meetings
and think about the social organization of existence.
It will all tip its hat in my direction.
We beings are satisfied with communication.
The positive influx of energy returns.
Every Friday I see Kate smile at least once
and I remember that smile throughout the week.
I think, maybe there’s a good chat being stored,
waiting for us educated oafs, way out there.
Lazy Lester as Newfangled Gratuity
I’ve been listening to you, baby, for some time now.
Change on the Range
Other cutbacks:
Exploitation in video sexuality.
Cell phone use (long-term decline).
Gaming (uninstallation period commences this evening).
Poetry readings (not all are mandatory so let’s stop thinking that way).
My plate fills with:
Backgammon.
More reading.
More language.
Robert Creeley.
Critical essays.
Movies archive to be finalized.
Book club of silly hats and jug wine.
More InDesign training.
Guitar (yeah right whatever).
Moral Benefits to Volunteer Work
Here is a story from City Year regarding my experience with one of my students, Patrick. “Starfish” is a City Year term for mentee.
We see ourselves in ourselves. Different generations of humans follow certain patterns in their existence. We inevitably repeat challenges, freedoms, crises, and resolutions that have come before us. It feels natural to seek out individuals who confront experiences similar to the ones we have been through. In the case of the mentor, it seems like we are drawn to the students who we can best identify with, or who are going through life experiences similar to those we have been through.
Patrick was initially another corps member’s starfish. He kind of wound up hanging around my teamlet’s tiny, hole-in-the-wall office here at Olney on a regular basis. It was hard not to get to know him upon meeting him. A mousy, quiet guy, he has an eccentric genius air about him. Maybe he’s so easy to focus on as a mentee because he’s constantly looking for the attention of the CYGP team.
As a person who is of an ethnic minority in the student body and who is smart and academically-motivated, Patrick is unusual for a freshman. He has always been considered odd by his peers and more than once have I shook my head at some of the things that he has said. I’m sure my teamlet would agree. At many times it seems like he is the outsider type. But he is outgoing, is up to learning new things, and can be quite cheerful when he wants to be.
I was similar in high school in Maine and so maybe I sympathize with Patrick. Regardless, Patrick’s found my mentoring capabilities quite easily. It seems like all of the others on the teamlet have also responded positively to Patrick, and have recognized to some degree that Patrick and I share some kind of psycho-emotional bond. It s cares me to put myself in such a position, but the rewards of being available to guide Patrick through the freshman year, a year of confusion, pain, and chaos, are great.
Every day during the school’s third period, Patrick comes to the office. There isn’t usually a set plan for the tutoring, so he stands there in anticipation of what’s to come. It always seems like he is thinking on some different kind of wavelength, but we do our best to get him set up with desk space and I more often than not put paper in his hands. He always starts work on his drawings, which he is very talented at creating. As an illustrator he is abstract but quite representative. Some of his pictures blend Family Guy characters with manga villains; others have Family Guy characters dressed in drag. His art has been a huge struggle for the teamlet. I constantly tell Patrick to create a longer, larger, much more devoted piece, but he seems to draw basic pictures and fly through from one to the next. It seems like he gets bored quickly and thus the ultimate goal for me is to get Patrick to commit to that single project for any extended amount of time. At the time of this writing, success is yet to be seen.
It’s clear that Patrick has a variety of social problems that are a result of or could be caused by anger and fear. Of what? I do not know, but I have a feeling it is a combination of the environments he lives in, including family, academic, and outdoor spaces where he struggles to keep an open, optimistic mind. For example, he often confesses to me that the only way to solve the problems of this school and the people in it would be to tear the school down and start from scratch. He tells me that the government is the largest problem.
“How can the government let all these problems keep happening, keep going on,” he asks me. “There are so many Americans in pain. I just want to help them.”
I tell him he is still young. I tell him he should do his best this year and try to get transferred to a different, more academically-sound school for next year, where he can get a handle on his intellect. I tell him he can go to college someday for whatever he wants. I put out options. I tell him he can work in a building downtown, if he wants to, as an office worker. Or he could major in Political Science or Sociology and figure out solutions to this society’s problems. He’s only in the 9th grade and understands all my advice.
He’s a smart rebel who values his own intelligence. He’s a budding anarcho-artist, and though his anger sometimes worries me, it’s easy to keep him distracted and promote youthful development. I never thought I would come across someone like him, but I did. My fellow corps member Jasmine, who works over at Kensington Business, is ecstatic about it. “It’s a match made in heaven,” she announces to me during a dinner. The Olney West team often finds my mentor-mentee relationship with Patrick a positive thing.
But this is where I’m trying to expand as a service leader. I’m trying to introduce Patrick to new things to do that will supplement his school curriculum and my mentoring. I have introduced him to the student literary magazine that CYGP puts on, and he has already attended one of the downtown meetings. I have encouraged him to take part in service events and be as optimistic about life as possible. I tell him to study travel destinations and love. I encourage him to hang out with friends and make new ones as often as possible.
One of his greatest difficulties is acceptance, whether it’s of his own behavior, situation, or other cultures. One of my main challenges has been to get him to understand and learn about the world around him, but I think he is on his way there. It will not be an easy journey but I’m sure it will happen in an exciting way. I am reading to see him learn, grow, and seek me out for assistance.
Centralia
Centralia, PA is about two hours west of Philadelphia. It’s a town that has burning mines below it. The ground emits smoke. The town is abandoned. This all started in the 1980s.
Today Jeff Brennan, Linda Thea, and I went. Here are some selected pictures.
Joe Roarty and Folk
Moonstone featured Joe Roarty this past Tuesday, January 19th. I caught the end of his performance, and managed to get the entire open mic. The open mic presenters were: Hal Brown, CA Conrad, Donald Moore, Donald Means, host Bob Swan, and myself.
Download here: LINK.
Recording: NPP at the Bowery Poetry Club
Last Saturday, the 16th of January, the New Philadelphia Poets went to New York City to perform at the Bowery Poetry Club. The results: an epic single-strain presentation featuring Patrick Lucy, Matt Landis, Debrah Morkun, Sarah Heady, Jamie Townsend, Greg Bem, and Carlos Soto Roman. People came out and gave their support, which was also great.
Below find the link to the reading. If you have questions, email me.
gbem1