The Conversion of the Professor

The professor read Plato; he dabbled in Barth
He cried upon Nietzsche and groaned over Sartre.

He studied the Forms and things-for-themselves
He took everything the library had on its shelves.

He thought about estrangement and despaired at dasein;
He marveled at the vanity of the good and the fine.

He listened to them argue how we know what we know;
He said, "I'm too stupid and my mind is too slow."

He tried to grasp Zeno, but it butchered his head;
"I am much too stupid, yes, much too stupid," he said.

"Where can I find wisdom? How can it be
that these men are so brilliant and cannot agree?"

He went home to his granddaughter, who was making plum goo
and asked her quite frankly, "What can I do?

"I—" he stopped himself in the middle of saying something dirty.
She got down her Bible and read to him from Proverbs chapter thirty.

The Professor's Trip

The professor was leaving. It was time to pack.
He threw away his stuff, and took an empty sack.

He got onto a plane. It flew like a flash.
Before the pilot knew it, they crashed.

The professor floated on the ocean, up onto the shore.
He laid still, then stood up and walked in his front door.

The Ambiance of the Professor

The professor was lost. The reason for it was something he couldn’t find.
“But,” as he put it, “that’s wholly irrelevant if you’re out of your mind.”

He survived on hazelnuts and poisonous blue roots.
At six he dined on candy cane and bamboo shoots.

He slicked his hair with beeswax and smoked water in his pipe.
“Mmm,” he murmured. “The water here is good, and it’s ripe.”

His entire time in the woods he was very careful to be polite.
He got out a hose and washed his toes every nineteenth night.

He missed his granddaughter, so he stopped by the post office and sent her a letter.
“I should’ve put it in the creek,” he said calmly and sadly. “That would’ve been better.”

He dug a piano from under the leaves, and gracefully lulled out a song,
Lost and Alone as Sand in Space, but the words, as usual, came out wrong:

A rock sinks in the sleek black sea, never to return.
The fire in my heart’s so loud I can hear it burn.

I’ll never see you again, never see you again, never, never, I cry.
The thought of you is my reason for living, but it makes me die.

The professor climbed trees; he jumped into streams; he thrashed around in the brush.
And when he missed her so bad he was blind, he unlost with a twitch and a rush.

When He Was Young and Spry

“Grandpa,” she said, “I wrote something for you to stop and read.”
He was dashing quickly down the road to check up on his speed.

He stood at attention to salute a toad, then took the proffered scroll
and gave it right back, so she read it aloud: The Dragon in the Bowl

I’th’days when my grandfather lithe and youthful was,
his now lengthous beard naught more than light fuzz,

a dragon sojourn’d unto the village market seekingly of apple pie;
but my grandpa, bloodthirst and rash, nor wanting sensible “why”,

for the sake of his kindly kin, yea, his kin and kith,
raisèd up his sword and smote the dragon thatwith.

The worm recoil’d and forthwith gave a prolong’d fiery bellow;
notwithstanding, the serpent gave battle. “A rather tough fellow,”

remarkèd the youth offhandedly as he took his lunch break
consist’d whichwas of apples, and largely of dragon steak,

whichby meanteth he that ‘twas disgusting and hard to chew.
Nevertheless, heldeth he to. “Instead I will make some stew.”

The professor approved of this longago fairytale very much, maintaining every word was true.
“Yes,” he told her, “the apples; even our diction—you have it right. That is what I used to do.”

The Courage of the Professor

They screamed in his ears, they screamed in his eyes
In their anger at the professor, they screamed out lies.

But the innocent professor didn’t flinch—what did he care?—
so he stood there and watched while they pulled out their hair.

Then, as they raced, shouting, after him, he boarded a train.
One said to the others: “Along this track is rough terrain.

We’ll wait till the professor’s asleep in the caboose
then as we go over the gorge we’ll let that car loose

and give it a big heave to the left or the right.”
They gathered around and cackled with delight.

Then there was the gorge. The schemer cried, “Quick, to the back;
our last glimpse of the professor will be as he falls off the track!”

They passed through a car where it seemed to be night.
One fumbled about and found a large candle for a light,

but when he saw what the long, red candle was, his face went white.
It didn’t have a wick, but a fuse. His teeth rattled; he took a bite.

The professor was sitting on the turfy side of the mountain, his intended destination.
The train was a pop can shaken up; then—there was no evidence of the decimation.

The Incompetence of the Professor

They knew the house was in danger; they had scene more than one spark
It was time to call the electrician and tell him the wires had begun to arc

He picked up the phone—but there was a laugh at the door:
it was the professor, inquiring as to what he was wanted for.

“Well,” explained the man embarrassedly, “not for anything particularly—
I mean, I was going to call—uh, when you—um, I know this seems silly—”

The professor quietly comforted him with a crumbly bit of sharp cheese,
so they showed him the place where the wires had been gnawed by fleas.

When he saw the problem, he calmly asked for a pickle and lumber.
“So you’re a carpenter?” they asked, confused. “No, I’m a plumber.”

They brought him a pickle, extremely small and sour
The professor nibbled at it and savored it for an hour

The brought him lumber so he repaired the bed.
“Well, that did need to be done...” the man said.

They gave him pliers, so he plied at the wall till the man said, “Bleep!”
which the professor interpreted as meaning he should go right to sleep.

They doused him with buckets and sprayed him with hoses;
it would have been more worthwhile to do that to the roses,

but they kept it up till the house burst out in flame.
“Wake up—this is all your fault; you’re to blame!”

The professor’s face just kept on smiling, so they left for town
and he snoozed in the fixed bed while the house burned down.

It rained for three weeks without a pause but he did not so much as start.
Amid the ruins the blackened bed molded, mossed, rotted and fell apart.

At last the sun came out and his granddaughter woke him to gave him some tea;
and the confused old professor, though wet through, was as happy as he could be.

The Fishing of the Professor

The professor could not be seen, only piles of twine;
“What’s that?” asked the fisherman. The reply: “My handline.”

“What’s your bait?” “A strand of my granddaughter’s hair.”
“It won’t work,” declared the fisherman. “It’s too fair.”

“My granddaughter’s hairs have caught many a swordfish.
Your flies only catch minnows, and none that are biggish.”

They went together through the woods to the brook.
One tied on his fly; the other, a hair on his hook.

The professor let out his line, mile after mile
At last the fisherman said, with a bit of a smile,

“If you let out much more, you’ll be fishing in the sea.”
Then, “Argh! Another little minnow. Dirge-dump! Gee!

“Those’re all I’ve caught; three hundred nineteen—”
“Good,” said the professor, “my bait has been seen.”

He began yanking it in. “For my kind of bait,
the fish don’t hit, so you don’t have to wait.”

Soon after, the creek water began to rise;
it came up until it enveloped their thighs.

The fisherman, much alarmed, cried out in dismay.
The prof said, “It’s only my fish swimming this way.”

Nearly blocking the stream, it came into view,
bigger than the fisherman’s minnows, all 562.

“What is that fish?”—“I am sure that you know.
It’s a sort of shark that died out long ago.”

The fisherman replied in a voice much too loud—
the type of voice that is likely to gather a crowd—

“I challenge you to a duel with a cowboy friend of mine,
one who’ll turn you to mincemeat and feed you to swine.”

One—they stood at opposite—two—ends of the street—three.
The cowboy’s gun was halfway up when—bang-kablammy!

—it blew up. The professor hadn’t brought his gun;
he explained very carefully why he didn’t need one:

“Do not worry. I’ll fire tomorrow. My bullet is fast:
when I shoot it, it flies swiftly back into the past.”

The fisherman and the cowboy went together to the old bar.
It’s said that between them they downed a good deal of tar.

Dove Wings in the Trash Bin

We found a dove standing behind some yucca, shriveled, starved.
His blah eyes showed little life, only the last three dry kernels on a corncob.
I try to imagine hunger: the blurry world is a jerking, swirling dream
and my head goes thud-thud-thud while I double up as a wrathful belly orders
Food. No, I can't guess. Thank God we had our shotguns. You need a lot of faith
to look at something soft your hand enfolds that is hungry and can't fly.

The boy that can't walk reminded me of the bird that couldn't fly.
He was born too young, so the doctors advised, Let him starve.
But his parents loved him, and they'd professed the faith;
They said, It's not a crime to be no bigger than a corncob.
The doctors' wooden faces meant they wouldn't give the help that was in order
Yet his parents knew killing their son wouldn't kill the dream.

I wonder if he walks in his dreams.
In mine I run and fight and fly.
A guy does what he wants like giving the waitress his order
or getting into high school, I always figured, and won't starve.
It's an empty word. But here the exams mock my friends' brains as corncobs.
Will I still call not bragging "humility" when I test with no need for faith?

...and call giving thanks without gratefulness "faith"?
Only words...the time when waking was dreaming,
though hoary heads all around me were alive then. They lived on corncobs.
Sometimes sparse yellow teeth guillotined the squirming, muddy larva of a dragonfly
Stomachs that rejected bugs and wood could only starve.
Vegetables and meat were only for the man who gave the crippling order.

There's a man here whose words come out in any order
He says he's the one who gave the command. He says so with faith.
He comes often to our house—being shunned has left him starved:
no one wants to be around a thing that lives a dream,
stinking, with clothes never free from flies.
He had a good job, but then his brain became a corncob.

There's the boy, with his gun, harmless as a corncob.
He sits on his car and shoots each of us in order.
His cousin, evading invisible bullets with giggles, flies
right by him, like a swallow. I have faith
that she doesn't understand, not even when she dreams,
and that she hasn't any idea she's watching him starve.

Father, smile at him by injecting him with faith wilder than any dream
to keep him from starving for joy and counting himself a corncob
I sign your Son's name to my words: order him to walk—so his heart will fly.

Mirrors Make the Strongest Walls

Your humanness shimmers and trembles
like the surface of the well's clear water
that hides itself in its own gentle darkness
as I lie in the sun, trying to see beyond my own reflection,
a skin I must pierce through
to send my soul diving into the warm depths.

My dusty fingers poke into the water,
groping for something to cling to,
something fixed in you to hold.
And there is my face again,
lifting with the waves.

As I pull my hand back
the droplets fall like tears
because tears are the pieces of a soul.

How can I know you from the inside?
How can I learn more than solid, static facts,
like the rocks that make the walls of the well,
and hold moving liquid in my leaky hands?

End of the Evening

The sun is falling away now

and as the valley is slowly torn from its clutching fingers
it leaves scratches of flame in the clouds

It clings

—and falls away



The valley is all sprinkled with ash.
The coals on the peaks burn out:
the day dies

Fireworks

Spring lit the wick
        and the flame crawled
        up! and up!
The fireworks blew up quick
        I could almost hear the
        pop! pop!

They exploded in yellow,
        purple, orange, pink,
        white, blue, and
        red! so red!

nature’s fireworks flared. Mellow,
        longer-lived,
        sweet-smelling—
        and instead of burned paper,
                        the product was berries overhead

Snow

Snow,
like grace,
falls from heaven

and covers the sin-scarred world
like a blanket of righteousness.


But soon it melts
to black sludge

Because men,
like fish,
wear a layer of slime.

A Professor No More, The Professor Yet

They were building a new building. As they had built the last,
They had often seen him give a—well, a look as he passed.

The principal of the college thought building much fun—
Until the professor asked quietly, “Hmm. Another one?”

The principal caught his breath, knowing what was meant. “You cannot pass!
By the secret flames, if you go now, who will teach next week’s class?”

With a kind smile, the reply: “Your buildings. But I won’t stay.”
And lifting off his professor’s hat, he threw it a very long way.

The principal tried to block the professor’s perilous path,
but the gentle professor quickly gave him some math.

Then slowly and silently walked to the wall.
The other looked up and croaked out a call

but the professor went over. It was not the glass on top
that made the principal, distrot, whisper, “Please stop.”

They hired trackers who sought him with hounds,
but the clever old professor was not to be found.

The principal rushed to the prof’s house and banged on the door.
A little girl answered, with a sweet, “What’s the pounding for?”

Unused to being spoken to so, he flushed thuroly red.
The shame cut so deep he then would have fled,

but she said softly, “If you are looking for my grandpa, he is here.”
He was aghast at his own odious response, which was: “Oh dear.”

The prof was in the kitchen, sleeping on (what the girl called) the picnic table.
The principal tried to say “Hi.” Instead came, “Um, Mr. Mentally Unstable—”

“That’s so; I never have kept horses in my brain.
The weight is likely to cause a good deal of pain.

“One day an obnoxious reduced my granddaughter to tears,
so I stuffed equines into his head till he bled thru his ears.”

Involuntarily the principal offered, “Is that story true?”
Not even looking. The girl said, “He made it for you.”

Again accidentally—“Hey, you can’t scare me, dude.”
“What?”—a hint of surprised anger. “Were you rude?”

Still looking away, the prof wrote, “Granted: permission to go out.”
Mission forgotten, the principal ran, barely swallowing a startled shout.

He consoled himself: “He’ll be back; he must turn a resignation in.”
But that was that. The professor never set foot on the campus again.

The Dying Grandfather

Like a man who smells a storm
he could feel the breath of death’s yawning gullet—
a wind like a blade of ice that slashed through his dirty jacket
and left him coughing up blood and clinging to his daughter-in-law,
withering and rotting like a fig,
softening and crumbling like a fallen aspen,
his cloudy eyes and loose face
showing a despair too strong to brave,
and a man too weak to scream.

In Praise of Lunacy

The professor is old—how old nobody knows.
It is believed that his beard caresses his toes.

The class was impatient—“Why should we wait?”
For as was his custom, the old professor was late.

When he finally came in, at least a half hour over,
he explained he had stopped to sniff at the clover.

“How do we know you won’t come when you should?”
His simple reply was—“The clovers smelled good.”

Yet they persisted, “Now will you give us a lecture?”
“That,” he said slowly, “is no more than conjecture.”

“Today,” he continued, “I will instruct you on how to be crazy,
for the insane are most often hardworking and never at all lazy.

I know many lunatics who are good and kind,
‘cause the right way to be is out of your mind.

For madmen are generally of very good cheer;
I myself have been mad now for many a year.

Simply scream out if you have any questions,
for I am quite open to all kinds of suggestions.”

“Well,” shrieked one, “what of two plus two?
With your lunacy method, what do you do?”

“If you do not know that one,” his teacher kindly intoned,
“I don’t know how you got here.” The students all moaned.

“Professor, what would you do if there was a war
and an enemy soldier came through at your door?”

“Now that is a real question,” the old man said.
“Perhaps I would ask him to stand on his head.”

“Do you skin a beaver from the bottom or top?”
“My personal preference is a sharp lollipop.”

Oh, how they mocked, how they all laughed and jeered;
the professor’s only response was to play with his beard.

They called him names; they shouted out, “Fake!”
The professor did not hear. He was eating his cake.