joe paterno is our football coach

you just gave ten cents
to a local charity
improving children’s lives

* * *

you deserve it
their lives
water
coming out of
your penis

* * *

GIVE water

* * *

when you say nation
and mean it
there’s no nation

go figure

* * *

hard to explain this
to an 18-yr-old football
player who’s written nation
four times in his brief
opening paragraph

* * *

go figure
the i in team
rub some dirt
on it

* * *

the i in team
wants the words
as breezes

* * *

as breezes as civil service

* * *

as breezes as open season

* * *

who’s ready for a dead baby
joke?

* * *

nobody
because this poem’s title
is in your name

* * *

joe pa

* * *

there’s a picture of joe paterno
on my credit card
my first one
my only one

* * *

as a kid i followed the team
and wound up in its school
because of that—the blue & white
sharp
basic
no bullshit
uniform

and it was pennsylvania
almost
local

* * *

but the town was disneyland
for douche bag frat types
who majored in being
their fathers

* * *

not that i never
enjoyed myself
in happy valley

* * *

i even went to a few games
in 1998 & 1999 when
they choked real bad
end of the season

* * *

there’s a joy
in watching
a great team fall
apart
suddenly
something you learn easily
growing up in philly

* * *

penn state was never
my team
go figure

* * *

in fall 1999 i was writing my first poems

i met matthew kremer & sassy ross
poets
who are still my friends

13 years later

* * *

ken rumble & c.s. giscombe
poets
who were my first teachers

* * *


a sense of possibility
in language then
got me in this situation
(today)
largely
to have given up
on character & plot
for the possible
which is nothing
really

to be the tree
as you say tree

* * *

at penn state
go figure

* * *

you might say
i began to learn
the i in team

* * *

to learn the i in team
is something
like a long march
thru an institution

to invade a phrase
from rudi dutschke
a student
a teacher
who believed you change
society by working within
or re-creating existing
institutions & loci of power
over time

* * *

rudi was german but his team
was international
and socialist
that’s why he got shot
in the head
in 1968

* * *

the bullet
however
took 12 years
to kill him

a long march
during which
rudi kept
winning

* * *

the i in team
is a body

not a bullet

* * *

funny the washington
bullets are now called
the washington
wizards

* * *

wash
wash
wash

* * *

i’ve got serious doubts
about the efficacy of
a long march thru any
institution in the usa
a team whose many
& various paraphernalia
root deeply & everywhere
its secret class war
so plain as day
shirts on people

* * *

to speak for myself
a life in poetry’s been
more a slow shedding
of nation
its constant
paraphernalia

* * *

some days i can almost
speak as myself

* * *

have you seen my shirt?

* * *

seems there’s a team
in i
that too few know

* * *

makes it tough
to bank on this
“critical pedagogy”
as meaningful work

* * *

this summer
like last summer
i’ve got a job
teaching basic writing
to freshman football
players at temple university
so they can get it out of
the way
before the season
starts

* * *

you might say i'm a tool
for temple’s football program

* * *

pays $4800 for six weeks
before taxes

not bad
at all

* * *

off the bat
i tell my students
i don’t represent temple
or community college or
wherever i’m teaching
which is mostly true
since wherever
i’m teaching
you’ve hired
an independent contractor

* * *

“adjunct”

* * *

the university does
what it can
to prevent long
marches
thru it

* * *

most w/ real jobs
in such places
are not exactly radical
which is to say
not exactly just

* * *

FAKE PROGRESS
2012

like

FAKE PROGRESS
2008

like

FAKE PROGRESS
2004

etc
etc

* * *

you get the picture
more than you
know

* * *

support for adjunct unionization
efforts has been next to nil
at temple

* * *

next to nil
you take what
you can get

* * *

hello, nil

* * *

the university is run like wal-mart
i tell my students

and we talk about it

* * *

we read a little paulo freire
about two pages

* * *

i tell them stories
make them laugh

to try to explain it

* * *

(sigh)

* * *

(yawn)

* * *

can i go to the bathroom?

* * *
. . .
. . .
. . .

* * *

are we watching a movie today?

* * *

yes we are:

he got game
(spike lee)

* * *

soundtrack by chuck d:

it might feel good
it might sound a little somethin
but fuck the game
if it ain’t sayin nothing

* * *

homework: what is it
for your game to say something?

what do you want it to say?

* * *
. . .
. . .
. . .

* * *

uhhhhhh . . .

* * *

god . . .

* * *

what time is it?

* * *

okay

* * *

up again
old heart

* * *

that’s right
i quote emerson
to myself
in the morning
so i can keep
teaching these
remedial classes

* * *

and drink up the espresso

* * *

and think about this wonderful girl
i’ve been seeing
how good she makes me
feel

* * *

until my thought bleeds into the abstract
mess of old worry & feeling
staked to love & identity—a single stake
no intelligence
can account for
and so re-focus on work
off past in the spine

* * *

wait, what’s this about?

* * *

why are you rioting?

* * *

“because joe pa’s our football
coach and they fired him”

* * *

oh, right

* * *

joe pa was the winningest
coach in college football history
until the ncaa “vacated” all
his victories going back to 1998

now he’s the 5th winningest coach
of all time

* * *

now we know
if you’re a great football coach
and you help cover up your
assistant coach’s rapes
of young boys
the ncaa will vacate
some of your victories
after you die
of lung cancer

* * *

perhaps such details
aren’t necessary since
at present that’s all
common knowledge

but i wonder who’ll
remember
in say five years

who will remember
in 20 years

* * *

will this poem even exist in 20 years?

* * *

what about in 50
or 100 years?

* * *

will joe paterno
still be
our football coach?

* * *

next week
my football class
will be reading
“the meaning of success”
a chapter in michael messner’s book
power at play: sports and the problem of masculinity

* * *

messner criticizes the lombardian ethic
which places winning above all else
so that an athlete’s self-worth
depends always and only
on his latest performance

* * *

sort of like in the art world

* * *

“you’re only as good as your last game”

* * *

consider your own sense of failure
low self-esteem and problems
w/ intimacy

and how it may be linked to
the way you’ve constructed
your own identity in relation
to an imagined public—“the crowd”

* * *

some of my students won’t
want to hear about this
they won’t want to hear
that the lombardian ethic
which got them a full ride
is used to cash in on athletes
especially those from poor
backgrounds (like themselves)
who will most likely end up
seeing themselves as losers

* * *

joe paterno
advanced as he was
didn’t want to hear
about jerry sandusky
raping boys in the shower

* * *

raping women is common practice
among male athletes in college

you can blame the individual
every time & forget about it

you can vacate the rape
of a woman

of boys not so much

* * *

a guy from last year’s football class
is going to jail this year for
raping a woman

* * *

who roots for you in jail?

* * *

here we are
in a remedial class

which includes
the middle class
and all of their
fleeting victories

* * *

can we talk
about rape and $$$$$
and our football coach

* * *

this is no longer
a performance

* * *

you the i in team
may begin