After Seeing a sign on a Wheelbarrow Wheel that said, "Not Intended for Highway Use"

I had turned my wheelbarrow into a motorized vehicle
I was embarrassed of its clunkyness
and only drove in the back woods of Jackson at first
down Devils Hill where the kids
went sledding in the winter.

When I took it out on the real road to get some coffee
at a Wawa, people stared.
They didn't know what to make of me traveling 35 mph
fuzzy dice hanging off
one handle a nice smelling tree hanging off the other.

I use a metal rake to stop myself and flower pots
for cup holders
Instead of flipping someone the finger I throw
a shovel from
the back seat. The wheel says "not intended

for highway use" but I gotta get to Pennsylvania
or the outer banks
and I've grown so used to traveling by garden
equipment its the only
way I know how

This was the ending of some other poem but now its a new one

In the future, the results
on Google will determine
how famous you are.
How many hits you get
will determine how much
you get paid and a holiday
bonus is given
for the amount of images
people can see of you.
Wikipedia pages are ads
for everyone in the world.
And everyone will know
everything about everyone.
It'll be great.

Googling Someone's Name is Perhaps the Most Romantic Thing to do as Shown Through a Poem by Joe McCall

When I Google your name
a twitter from
you to me comes up
to meet at the diner
at 5:45

I don't know where
we were going
to Philadelphia
for some cheesesteaks,
a beach to see
constellations, have
a casual conversation
over coffee
but I was probably late
as you waited
in your car
and our conversation
was awkward because my
"getting to know you"
phase of a relationship
takes a lot longer
than most.

The Catholic in Me, Loves the Sacrifice in you

The Catholic in me
loves the sacrifice in you
all the rides you give your cousin
in a car that can't
travel in warm weather
the fries you give away
at diners bought with
change used for toll booths
and expensive video games
for your brother which
may or may not have
zombies.

I give my stuff away too
and eventually I see
us both in an empty room
with nothing left to give
to anyone and we're not bored
and we're not meditating
and people don't come looking
for us or needing anything else.
We won't know what to do
with ourselves. We'll be anxious
and out of place and though
we claim to be absurd now
will really know what its like then.

We argued about words
you said that words
come from
dictionaries
that that is
what they mean,
that to be
"prejudice" was
worse than being
"racist"
That prejudice people
judge other people
and that racist people
are simply aware of
racial issues.

But I argued that words
don't come from dictionaries
but from people's mouths
and then they enter dictionaries
and to be a racist
was a lot worse
than being prejudice
maybe its that hard "st"
sound at the end
the sudden stop of the word
but being prejudice
flows and sounds
more official
like some political
position
or a religious movement
that woin't go away

I write in three places
my car
in class
and at readings
One when I'm
traveling at 60 mph
one when I'm
infecting minds
the third when my
mind gets infected

you always carried a pen
and that was really important to me
Thanks for carrying
pens for me
I don't think they
were for me
but thank you

Form doesn't matter
sonnets, freeverse
it doesn't matter at all
all that matters
is getting that
written word
from my brain
to some page
to my mouth
to your ears
to your brain
form doesn't matter
rhyme scheme doesn't
matter
iambic pentameter
doesn't matter
communication is
all that matters
in poetry
in music
in paintings
in anything really

all this economical strain,
I don't even feel it.
I'm back on an elementary
school schedule and all
that matters are state
holidays and the ways
I waste my time.

The Fall of St. Patrick

it wasn't the snakes that did it
and it wasn't the drinking
or the bar fights
it was probably his ego
each week standing in front
of a group of spoken word
slam type hotties
who tried to rap without
the music underneith
and I'm sure he slept
with one or two
or at least got really close
which led to the fall of
St. Patrick
a man we were so excited to see
whenever we thought of Jersey City
and its perpetual ride and
whatever its trying to become.

"Professor Baird, I want a taco"
and suddenly right at that moment
I want a taco too and ask the students
where to get tacos in Perth Amboy.
I give the students
an assignment and run across
the street to a taco hut.
I buy eightteen tacos, nine beef
nine chicken, and return with
three bags. We eat the tacos
and grade our work,
then I hand out a poem
about the body that was
given to me in my Masters Class
but I knew my reading students
could handle it.

It was about relationships
and the differnce between
a boy's wants and a woman's
needs and I felt it was something
we all could relate too.
We got personal and talked about
our own relationships and one student
who was soon to be married
and whether or not marriage worked.

"Professor Baird..." says Stockton.
I gave all my students pet names
it helps me to remember them,
gives me a reason to remember them,
and its a lot more affectionate
that way and shows that I care.
"Professor Baird..." says Stockton.
He was called Stockton because
he lived on Stockton street and
I used to go to Stockton and he revealed one
day that he played piano and I used to play
piano at Stockton so it all worked out.
"Professor Baird..." says Stockton,
"...if their's anything I'm learning
from this class, its that poetry doesn't
have all the answers like I thought
it did, but answers questions one
at a time."
If tacos fuel lines like that
they'll get tacos every class
till December and they'll
all get A's even the ones
that don't show up.

Markers in Your Life

Lakehurst Navy Base, the gas station with cheap gas, the middle school, Ridgeway Liquors, the red light he drove through...

Some of the things my grandfather mentally checks off when I drive him home every holiday and birthday. A list to make the ride seem shorter, I guess, or maybe something to fill in the silence between me and a ninety year old man with his pride in running that red light and making it one year to the next.

I usually grab the blade
of the sword before it hits
me. It slices right through
my hand which makes me
happy that I use
computers to write
one fingertip at a time.
Usually I don't know
the guy with the sword
sometimes its my friends
but only because I provoke them

Walking the Trail

Sometimes they just come with no control
the form comes easily
as you skip this line
and skip that line,
and the ending brings you back
to the beginning.
but sometimes they don't come
sometimes you have to make them come
use your mother's maiden name
for a pen name
not only because it sounds
more literary
but because we all have father issues
that need to be dealt with
at some point.
Sometimes you have to make them come
taking the grown over trail from the 2 mile
path I walk everyday after lunch
finding a dead end or a stream to cross.
Sometimes they just come
and sometimes you have to walk the trail
and find the dead end yourself.

I'm very excited on hitting the 2000 mark post on Walking English, it's like when yer car hits 200,000 miles

your right, waves do get smaller
but I didn't think of them as getting
smaller but just leveling out.
Leveling out to the point where
it reaches childrens ankles
except...they can still feel the pull
of the tide trying to bring them
back in. And then a new wave comes,
rises to a point and again levels out.
Without all that pulling back, and rising up,
and leveling out, without all that movement,
we'd only be lakes about to dry up if it wasn't
for the mountain springs that surround us.
Our celebrations are movements and the tide
is pulling back out leaving shells and rocks
that will be pulled out by other waves.

In elementary school there were two types of kids,
you were either a busser or you were a walker.
I was a busser.
I wanted to be a walker because they stayed late
after school and it wasn't till years later
that I found out it was only 10 or 15 minutes more
so the buses could have time to leave.

When my sister sees people walking on the road
in all black at night
she gets angry wondering where
he's going, what brought him there
to the middle of nowhere in Jackson.
We're surrounded by cranberry bogs.
Perhaps he's picking cranberries
at 2:14 in the morning.
It made sense to me.
He may have been the youngest
writer for some well known
magazine for all I know,
ran for some government position
to mess with the numbers.
All I know was driving down
Cedars Bridge Road
at 2:17 in the morning
was that I really
wanted some cranberries.

Lines from "The Prelude"

When the Earth is all before me,
and all these beginnings and happenings take over

I look about and the guide I choose
be nothing more than a wandering cloud

And with that I am calm
Thank you, Wordsworth
Thank you, Milton

and with that I remember predictions of cowboys
walking into bars, because Mariachi bands

are so rare in these parts and all those miracles we create
known or unknown, seen or unseen are when we are the strongest

Yet, in weakness we create distinctions, then
deem that our puny boundaries are things

which we perceive, and not which we have made.
I love it when the Earth is all before me

Everythings literal even when critical
times call for metaphors and lines
of iambic pentameter

Kundera says that
seeing is limited
by two borders:
strong light,
which blinds,
and total darkness.
My shoes used to be dark
now they are light.
They are white
and bright, stand out
especially with khakis
and the red paint
at the tip can be seen
from gas stations
that shut down
from art tours.
It's a lot easier now
going from darkness
to the blinding light.