Three Millennial Signs

1.

Then there was the one about the two otherwise
delightful, hearing-impaired college students
exempted from the required English course
on the grounds their writing skills are not up
to scratch, literally, & therefore should
not be subjected to the subtleties
of detection

Instead they've been accessed,
thru Counseling, into a three-credit course in
Oral Communication, each with her own fully-
funded interpreter all signed up &
ready to download the nuanced
niceties of effective
extemporaneous
delivery

2.

Then there was the one about the suspected
psychopath (w/a history) who in a moment of
irritating self-doubt put his fist through the
classroom wall, handed in a neatly ambiguous
death threat to his teacher, & followed her
home every day for three weeks His lawyer
had him reinstated on campus (legal bills
siphoned out of operating funds) after a 48-
hour expulsion & a promise to recontinue
medication

College counsel perfected the double
Bail, recommended accelerated graduation
& shut down the fisti-guy's files
(under provisions in FOIPOP*)

Our whacked out
wacko then shuffled off to sign-on across town
as a "special needs" aide in a downscale primary
school portable, setting it on auto-implode
before he could ever run out of Charter*
buttons worth his past or future
to keep on selectively poking

_______________________________________________

* "Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy" legislation
* Constitutional "Charter of Rights and Freedoms"

3.

Then there was the one about the student who
adamantly insisted his teacher never allow mention
of the word "Nike" in their poetry seminar-
under advisement he might be "suiciding"
himself, pronto please
Something about cults & comets People
cinder-tracked where only space is deep,
37 of them, signed out

74 cast-off

Nineties Found Poem: A Personal Chronology,
with One Year Left to Y2K

1.

sweaters (cotton; acrylic)
cowboy boots (Boulet)
headbands (Fila)
toiletries (Colgate; Mitchum)
new age (Tangerine Dream; P. Buffett)
sport socks (LeVI'S)
vests (leather; suede)
tanks (budget; travel)
ear plugs (silicone)
boxers (various)
YJ/TJ (Hunter green)
central/eastern Euro-fiction (inter-/post-bellum)
T's (Premier; Serie A)
Hotspur (FA; reserves)
malamute (Alaskan)

2.

icebags (wraparound)
innerwear (Zoloft/Effexor/Rivotril, extra strength)
Netscape (E-zines; Fanzines)

Dehearing the Soaps

She loved him so much
his tail bone disconnected.

One for Massachusetts (& five serendipities)

There's a poem here somewhere
naked below the dash (you solenoid tease key
locked in our rental car we're right outside

one big weathered white clapboard house
homage chez Olson, 28 Fort Square (2nd fl)
Gloucester Harbor

all 94 degrees of it, humid squinting
sagely tourista, face to Pentax layered heat
wired skyline to a shrinking
Ten Pound Island the landlord's son-in-law

& I finally abort attempt at auto-break
(a guy thing, persistent, our ten-
year-old informs his mom
that coat hanger not trusty, rusty enough
abandon handyman to the triple-A pro
w/ the half-ton & winch, plenty
to lift even a virtual Maximus of T

one Big O could find
serendipitous to sing
I know a dress just sewed
(saw the wind
blow its cotton
against her body
from the ankle
so!
it was Nike

& I too swing manic, intent on relics
local commerce, what's authentic like design-your-own
Nike T's stamped Cape Ann

She
was going fast
across the square, the water

so my wife gunning the rental out front
thinks offal, thinks visitez les slums

Dogtown my
one requisite stop along a stunner coast
coves & ha'bors without end