Taking the day off.

I slept til 7:30 this morning! I've decided that I'm just going to let Saturday be a real Saturday. I'm not going to do anything I don't feel like doing, including writing my novel. If I get in the mood later, I'll do it. I did wake up briefly at 6 a.m. to jot down a poem that popped into my head. I've been teaching Whitman this week in English 11, and I had my kids write a poem about America based on either "I Hear America Singing" or Langston Hughes' "Let American Be America Again," which we compared with Whitman's optimistic verse. I had intended to write one myself as a model, but I never got around to it. My kids were harrassing me about not having a poem to read at our poetry reading Friday. Anyway, this is the poem that popped into my head this morning:

I hear American singing
a fat lush who's forgotten the words
but keeps singing anyway - discordantly -
until he's thrown into the streets by the manager.

I hear America singing
a blue-haired matron in a Gloria Vanderbilt pantsuit
sitting upright and stiff in a hand-polished pew -
loudly and off-key and without knowing the meaning of the lyrics -
to the chagrin of the parishioners behind her -
to the chagrin of the homeless man she passes an hour later,
passes on the other side of the street.

I hear America singing
a plastic boy band with fake smiles or a trashy
diva with fake eyelashes
with a fake voice piped in from a recording in Bangladesh -
replaced yearly by newer models, turning up again pregnant and broke
on the cover of the National Enquirer.

I hear America singing
a rapper with a gold grill -
diamond studded, a chrome Rolls Royce -
singing about the poverty and neglect of his people
while he makes time with the diva in a Hollywood night club
while his sister sings on a dark corner in Compton -
impoverished and neglected.