Apogee in Advance of Bad Poetry

TO A TEACHER ONCE KNOWN:

Poems aren’t my thing, but here’s an odyssey of a dream.

I’ll write a ballad. Google says it counts as poetry.

You love this stuff. But I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

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When I hit 'send' for the letter of resignation to

the job I thought I’d never leave,

I fell into the bed for three full days, haunted by dreams.

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On Shenandoah soil I stood where water carved ravines.

In every dream two looming oaks stand apart; await me.

Clear water falls no longer from a hole shaped like a key.

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Blood rust runs red and fire consumes the small and weaker trees.

Autumn’s mold has taken hold but more aggressively.

The stench tells me there’s danger near. Disease is in the stream.

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And in these dreams this disease is calling for my own name.

It’s coming for my progeny claiming our DNA.

It’s here; even outside of sleep. It needs someone to blame.

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So how am I doing with the imagery? Spark Notes

told me to use all similes and metaphors and quotes

around the words of someone else. This poetry’s no joke.

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I don’t know how you read this stuff. You do. So poetry

I will write because I heard you. Your words are what saved me.

You hollered from a mountain top. You echoed in my dreams.

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The strangest dream happened night three when silence I did cross

a foggy Appalachian road where vines and mold and moss

sang of hanging ghosts in trees with no sound, no words, or thought.

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The birds herald with no chirping, stationed silent and still.

Perched upon every tree branch, they watched with intense will

as the ground quaked; I looked about a shattered cathedral.

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My feet planted on both sides of the deepest cut ravine.

Standing over a gaping hole that widens as I scream.

No sound or move the birds did make as if it’s what they deemed.

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Into the mountain’s deep chasm I slid. Clawing to grasp

at cavern walls too smooth to hold. The vines of Eden’s grapes

make them partially unclothed. I slip into a cenote

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and float in rich and velvet folds of water emerald green.

My lips lap at holy water, arms stretched wide to receive

a beam from above, lighting up droplets like confetti.

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That was my attempt to play with religious imagery.

The internet says its needed To write good poetry.

Only don’t expect that from me; I only teach science.

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This next part gets pretty crazy. I’m pulled under by snakes.

152 feet down into a glistening cave.

Flesh colored rocks untouched by age, nothing weathered away.

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Behind ridged walls there comes a pulse, a deep, low sultry beat.

They push me onto couches, soft, jewel-toned and velvety.

Show me yours and I’ll show you mine, and the snakes undress me.

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They are not terrifying when they expose their own skin;

they are quite beautiful, really. They slither and slide in.

Curvaceous, supple, voracious iridescent passion.

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Is this Eden’s Garden? I asked. They laughed. Shook their heads no.

When will I come back? I plead. When the time’s right. You’ll know.

But what if I don’t know the way? They shrugged. You’re on your own.

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They wove a crown of feathers in my hair. Spoke history

in my ear. And from fleshy folds presented me a key.

They pointed to a gate and said, You’ll be back to see me.

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Why does poetry always have to be so confusing?

It can’t just give the answers or reveal the true meaning.

I’m only a science teacher. I don’t know what I’m doing.

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But you love the stuff, so I’ll write this dream-like Odyssey

as a poem [I hate poetry] because your words saved me.

You hollered from a mountain top. I heard you in my dreams.

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The other side of the gate was the Appalachian road.

Ghosts of birds watched silently from trees like skeletal bones.

Beneath my feet the disease had grown; I dove back in the hole

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and crashed onto concrete ice. The water froze. Bedsheet white

cliffs replace smooth caves. No more snakes. The cenote had dried.

The disease made it insurmountable. I lost the will to try.

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It was your words that helped me out, whispering through the night.

A poem you once read, “Rage, Rage,” but your voice wasn’t right.

It was the scream of trees and birds “Do not go gentle”. Fight.

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I once took a poetry class. I wasn’t very good.

The teacher liked his writing and his buckle made of wood.

He’d set us before him and read shit no one understood.

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So I used a lot of symbols and most of my own words

I tried personification. I’ve done all the homework.

But leave it up to poetry to not make any sense.