ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Andy Powell is a Teaching Artist for DreamYard in the Bronx. He has writing out with The Paris Review, Winter Tangerine Review, Peach Mag, and elsewhere, and is poetry editor for Hesperios Journal. A 2018 fellow to The Poetry Foundation & Crescendo Literary's Poetry Incubator, he founded DreamYard's Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium.
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
Legion of Mary
Poets Resist
Edited by Matty Layne Glasgow
October 29, 2019
Edited by Matty Layne Glasgow
October 29, 2019
You think you’ve got heaven but you’ve got hot cheetos —
you haven’t even tried Takis. It’s 8:45
public school time and I’m in a staring contest
with the spectre of Betsy DeVos in the heavy hands
of the clock. I see more than our time to finish our metaphor
exercise running down. I know I should say “Hello”
to anyone I’m only just meeting rather than try
to scald them with a hot cheetos v Takis burn,
even if they are a ghost presence.
I know I have a generosity
around here somewhere, in the closet
or maybe I left it at home in the basement.
You know what? I gave it to my brother
and he’s in Berlin. I usually have tons,
though I like to save them for young people,
not for US Secretaries of Education, who should
know better. Let me go find another one
at the gym. Just kidding, I won’t be able
to find one for you until you’ve invested hugely
in public schools. No, Betsy, charters
don’t count just because they technically count.
And if you want to earn a “sunny day”
like the kindergarteners you’re going to need
to flush student loans promptly
down the toilet, because profiting
off dreams is like plucking the roses
from a public garden for your own windowsill.
You won’t? Stormy clouds for you again
this week. Not just a sticker
on the chart; these stormy clouds
you have to take home where they
will most likely rain on your couch.
The kids are counting their fires —
their metaphors for heat —
that I hope aren’t the kinds of fires
that others have made for them
that they’ll have to extinguish.
I don’t want to burst into flames
when I think of the one person in the country
who’s got some measure
of power over nearly every every
every student in the country.
This is no country of your own.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
