Class Dismissed

The German smacks the chalkboard with withering contempt,

shuffling papers for the holiday,

while outside everything is slate cold and black settles down

to pitch night when the children are let out of cages;

little monsters smoke and drop hints that violence

will begin to blossom

like a cruel flower

from the mouth of the dog

that has just bit my leg.

(and we pressurize the hydro cephalic,

pull the desk backward to reveal

the heathen youth,

possessed of madness,

muttering to himself the falsehoods of the Trade,

and somewhere,

in an auditorium of the absurd,

the Devil has reserved a seat to the right and left of him…)

Nothing is necessary

no more.

I hate this hell reserved

for me,

where cruelty waits on tip of female tongue

as dirty fingers flick ash on the pavement.

Where am I?

How did I get to be here?

in this callous world of so many hallways

and classrooms screaming out from the black

void of regulation stomp,

as I know I will never fit into the precise geometric angles

of the diagram?

I can’t learn this language; it is cold

and merciless

and trapped in a frozen moment

where rape gives way to yearning.

Tarzan in the undersea world of the animals.

A dog with a bowl-like lip.

Chickens clucking in the yard.

Outside,

a bird is screaming deceit.