August 2024
Ralph James Savarese
SAVARESE@Grinnell.EDU
SAVARESE@Grinnell.EDU
Bio Note: The author of three books of poetry, I have taught for forty years at all manner of institutions. Now half-retired, I teach free, online creative writing workshops with my son to autistic youth.
Marshmallow
My department chair
is worried about grade inflation.
“Savarese, you’re giving out
too many ‘A’s.” “Well,”
I say, “get the Dean to raise
interest rates. Maybe
we can have another
Great Depression.”
Later that night, I think,
“I’m not the worst.
I fail some students.
Our colleague Death—he’s
a marshmallow. He gives
everyone a passing grade.
Forget being able to read
and write or use proper
citational procedures.
He’ll send you forward
without a heartbeat.”
Hairdryer
I used to curse
those helmetless fools
on scooters and motorbikes.
A boy late for class,
his roommate clinging like a barnacle
to his back.
“No Woman, No Cry”
coming from somewhere,
a doobie in the barnacle’s hand.
It’s as if they’d never seen
a pumpkin splattered
on the curb,
hadn’t been told to apply
what they learned
in physics class:
Force = Mass + Acceleration.
The skull is distinctly not
a diver’s cage in which
you take selfies “with” sharks.
“The Great White is you!”
I wanted to shout.
“Your stupidity!”
But now here I am,
as helmetless as they,
on a joyride I’ve been forced to take.
I’m cruising the underworld
on my Marley Davidson,
the highway an everlasting toke.
Rastaman Live Up!
(One moment you’re eating
Cheerios; the next,
Chokeios.)
Can you feel the wind
at my face?
It’s Morty’s hairdryer.
He runs the funeral home.
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