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
