In the dream cafeteria
my old postmodernism professor Dr. B
laughs with me about the famous poet
and his secret sexual misadventures with
Muppets. His current students laugh
too but ours is knowing laughter theirs
nervous supine.
Dr. B asks the kids if they remember
my bear poem and one blushes:
I forgot to bring my notes on Telfer
the assigned laughters fall.
Later outside the band practice rooms
an ex-girlfriend begrudgingly announces
the winner of the contest inspired by the
poem I wrote about my car. From the crowd
I yell to ensure she gets the make model
color right. Sometimes dreams are
fucking easy to interpret.

Stanley Fish gave a lecture at my college
and said that postmodernism was bullshit
(I'm paraphrasing) and the actual Dr. B
got on the Q&A mic to defend his life
the best he could. SF also said that if
you're not an expert in something you're
basically bullshitting (I'm not paraphrasing).
He challenged everyone there to arm wrestle
his knowledge of John Milton. No one accepted.
Then he put on a striped singlet and spun
a Model-T over his head for an hour.

I wrote comic strip dialogue that goes:

Guy: Man, if you don't think ____ is a total hottie you'd have to be blind, gay, and dead!
Sarcastic Animal: John Milton?

My friend said it wasn't a good comic
strip because it essentially says
Hey! Look how much I know about
John Milton! He's right, but I neglected
to tell him that that's ALL I know about
John Milton. I'm tired of saying
John Milton. Maybe the New Yorker
would like my comic strip about
John Milton.
John Milton.

Dr. B admitted once that he'd never read
Hamlet and that at this point he'd probably
not need to. I've read Hamlet, but I don't
have a word for the kind of reading that is
saying the words in my head, but actually
thinking about how many girls I could
have sex with if I had any game – that's how
I read Hamlet Song of Myself and the first 20
pages of Paradise Lost by
John Milton.

Harold Bloom discusses Hamlet like an old
lover – one whom he remembers fondly though
briefly, as if too much discussion will remind
everyone that HB could have prevented the prince's
death if he'da just kept his big ol' egghead out
of all them books.

I've been accidentally recently publicly racist sexist
I don't have a word for prejudice with good intentions.

When I ask the young poets I teach to define
Poetry their definitions widely variate alive
polychromatic. They stop smiling and scribble
when I tell them my definition. I wish I wrote
what they define. I can't believe I corrected Erika
when she said Poetry is survival.

It's hard to say what I mean
when what I mean is quicksand lightning bugs
I mean neighborhood fragrances
I mean the birds who live in the airport
I mean potato diseases and I don't know which ones
I mean I don't know
I don't know what I mean
I'm basically bullshitting.