Guerilla Science

Note from Guerrilla: This experiment has been postponed due to an apparent strike by the subjects. Anyone who has raised plants knows that they have a strong sense of justice and, when they feel an injustice has been levied upon them, as in the case of scientific experimentation, they will practice civil disobedience: Root-ins, photosynthesis strikes, silence. However, though stubborn and shrewd, they are incapable of  comprehending deceit, and are easily outsmarted by humans since we are, of course, experts in this area. Therefore, I will let them think they have achieved victory and experiment upon them at a later date when they hardly expect it.





Introduction:

It has been well established in previous investigations that plants communicate chemically through the soil and air (lazy person will eventually insert citations here). It was noted by this observer one day that her own potted plants appeared to be communicating in quite a different manner: by touching their leaves together. In this observational study which will eventually be performed more rigorously, my Fern and African Violet (lazy person will eventually insert scientific names here) were used to demonstrate that plants grown separated in pots, in close proximity to one another, will grow towards one another regardless of the direction of the light.

Methods

My Fern and African Violet, in a direct affront to their autonomy and privacy, were inhumanely isolated in pots and subjected to this cruel experiment. The intention of this researcher, once this preliminary observational study is complete, is to commit more atrocities against plants in the interest of science by expanding her sample size and improving on her study design.

Results

Results will be posted in the form of photos. On the left is a picture of these two rascals caught in the act. Note the direction of the light. Of course, given the Fern's superior flexibility, it is the Fern that is the aggressor in this case. On the right is a photograph taken a few minutes later. The Fern has been moved away from the Violet so that the offending leaf is now approximately two centimeters away (this lazy researcher will use more exact measurements in the future more formal study). Photographs will now be taken and posted daily to see what transpires. Ha. Plant term. No pun intended.



Discussion

Once demonstrated, one can only guess what these mysterious creatures are up to. This lazy researcher is not about to speculate on the possibilities and will leave that part up to more focused individuals. At the risk of sounding like a lunatic, however, this very scientifically minded agnostic will draw one very general conclusion from these observations: there is more going on with plants than we know.

From a Freudian Dream

From one me to the others,

Especially she who casts her body on the eternal floor
Emitting short, guttural bursts
Swinging a tear-soaked stick as
Pieces of flesh fly aloft
to and fro,
A swirling blur
Splashes across breasts
of gawking strangers.

You took no notice as I
Silently retrieved
A small piece
of these smithereens,
Carried it back to my bunker,
Spread it on a soft nutrient medium,
Tweezers teasing the edges
Into an optimal position.

Under a dome of thick glass,
It now rests on the sill.
I sit watchfully beside it
in a rocking chair.

I will be patient.

For far too long
From this sequestered room
I have witnessed you
and the careless one
who loses and maims fragile things inadvertently.
Run the show.

Survival

 

On Saturday

I watched a live demonstration
On how to throw an At-latel
 Such a simple device
 Could take down a Mastodon.

Today,
 I sit in the industrial park: suite 10101
Eyeing a Canada Goose
Waddling across a thin strip of brown grass
And I prepare my weapons:
Cynicism, honed into a positive attitude

Disgust, pounded into consent
A sneer, whittled carefully into a smile

 Survival.

Cosmic View

Galaxies collide
In a silk cove, a spider
I will give up fear.

Luxury of Goodness

I would've been a better man in better times
I smile at the sound of laughing children
Running barefoot through the grass
The smell of mountain air.
I have given coins to amputees,
Wondered at the stars.
Traded dark feelings for joy,
And I have loved.

The luxury of goodness.
Is there an equation for morality?
I only bolted the barricade.

I would've been a better man in better times.
Most aren't even tested.

You can keep the car

 

 

And I will keep the nights under the stars.

Maybe it is just the gin, without you I just sit and spin

On this fulcrum where your balance'd been.

And you forget that you, too, played a part.

Your innocence,  my guilt, is like some astrologic chart.

As if you rub your wounds with dirt

While from fresh gauze I knit a skirt

And flit the rim at other men.

See, always to your wounds I'll tend.

Because I love you though I left you and the things that love collects.

But I didn't mean to leave you scars

I meant to leave you nights under the stars.

 

 

Longer

A cold rain in May

You took the longer route

Sparing me the drenching on the way to my door.

Wipers smashed the delicate drops

While I realized this was the reason

It was not just to stay with me

Longer.

 

 
 

From the Reform Kitchen

 

 

So, they let me off work tonight and you know what I'm in the mood to do? I'm in the mood to reform secondary education! I mean, I'm also in the mood to reform healthcare, but I'll save that for a later date. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Not that I chew. Usually I just rip off a big chunk and swallow it whole. Which is why I get a lot of stomach aches.

 

Okay, so if I'm going to reform public education I need to throw everything in the garbage and just start with a clean cutting board and some really sharp knives. One of the main problems with education reformers in my view is that they begin with the system as it is and the problem with that is that that is sort of like trying to fix a pineapple-upside down cake when you mistook a box of Borax for flour. No amount of extra cherries is going to fix that sucker, you see? You have to throw it out and start over.

 

Apparently I'm also in the mood for food analogies.

 

So, I'm beginning my new education reform upside-down cake with two very simple observations I have made in my experience as an educator of adolescents and young teens. First, I can teach more to one kid in an hour than I can to thirty kids in a week, and second? How will I put it? Let's see...oh, I know! School sucks, man!

 

Let's take the first premise first. While my ratio may be a little bit off, the basic premise is an incontrovertible truth. If  you have a handful of those wriggly worms in front of you, say, a maximum of five, depending on the level of wriggliness of the participants, it is much easier to focus their attention, to engage them and to communicate complex ideas. In a classroom environment of thirty kids, or even fifteen, I am telling you, most of the time is wasted.

 

In further support of premise number one, I present to you my expert opinion on the nature of the adolescent. Who says I don't have any credible references? I know all about this subject first hand because, folks, I was one, and I'm telling you that the tendency of the average adolescent mind is to view the teacher as a blathering subhuman and to think of herself as the center of the universe. As the center of the universe, everything the adolescent says and does, even the position of her feet relative to the floor is on stage in front of her peers: her peers that she has ranked from most important to least important in terms of their opinion of her, and to whom she is either pandering for attention, ignoring, or attempting to smoosh deeper into the dirt, depending upon where the person is in her ranking system. Some of the teens, not thus engaged, are usually the ones who are being ignored or smooshed into the dirt and are spending their time thinking about how to subvert this inevitability.

 

In a classroom setting, the teacher is even less important than the peers that the adolescent wishes to smoosh into the dirt. The teacher is non-substantial. She is air. She may become human temporarily if she can be used for convenience to impact the status of the adolescent: if she can protect her, if she can serve as an object of ridicule, if the student is bored and has nobody else to talk to. Electronic devices, of course, have only exacerbated the problem. Minimizing peer distraction is the biggest obstacle a teacher has to overcome.

 

This brings me to my second premise. I not only hated public school when I was an adolescent, I hated it when I was a teacher. The second experience was worse because even though I hated it, I had to pretend that I didn't and, even worse than that, I had to defend it! At least as an adolescent I could say "this sucks" and keep my job. No amount of lamps and plants was going to turn that classroom into anything other than what it was: prison.

 

Adolescents need to be set free from this prison. The prison-like environment of most public schools says one thing to adolescents: you are bad. It also triggers only one desire: rebel! Fear and oppression do not foster learning. A more open, trusting environment which encouraged independence and freedom of expression would not only go further in producing life-long learners, it would probably quite paradoxically result in fewer disciplinary problems. Also, a more customized approach that embraced diversity in skill levels, interests, and learning styles could be achieved.

 

So, with those two factors in mind: really small classrooms for academic subjects (less than five) and an environment that encourages independence and freedom, this is how I see my perfect school. Oh, and, by the way, it could probably be implemented without any discernible effect on cost. Let me say that again: no extra cost. I know because I'm a brilliant mathematician and I've crunched the numbers. Okay, so I'm lying, but it doesn't seem like it would cost a heck of a lot more. Let's just go with that.

 

So this is how the upside-down cake approach to secondary education would work. Instead of a classroom of thirty or more students, each teacher would meet with three to five kids at a time for one hour, once a week (modifications to this basic plan could be made depending on individual need). During this hour, the teacher would sit very close to his students and discuss the "lecture" material for thirty to forty minutes. At the end of the hour, each student would be given an assignment that she would have to complete by the following week (or two weeks, or however long the 'lesson' runs).

 

From the teachers' perspective, teaching five classes a day like this, five kids at a time, five days a week would be a grand total of one-hundred and twenty-five students. That's about how many students the average secondary level public school teacher presently keeps track of. The rest of the day, of course, would be spent doing all of that "other stuff" that teachers do that people don't seem to realize takes up most of their time: planning, grading, offering extra help, meeting with parents, etc.

 

Under this plan, the students would have only one-two academic subjects a day, maybe six in a week: the same number of academic subjects that the average secondary level public school students presently takes. But, the question is, what would the student be doing with the rest of his time? This is where the second factor I mentioned would come in. He would be released into the wilderness.

 

Okay, so that would just be chaos, but while some of what I will call "open" time could be spent taking more "hands on" electives like art, music, shop, etc., which lend themselves to larger groups,  the majority of the students' time would be spent working on their assignments (remember those?) in "open resource" rooms, which would resemble libraries. Each open resource room would be equipped with an adequate number of teaching assistants/volunteers/tutors/responsible students and, of course, all of the resources necessary for the students to complete their assignments. Some of these rooms could be quiet rooms, and others could encourage interaction/collaboration. Students would be relatively free to roam, and could even go to lunch or take small breaks whenever they needed to (though they would be monitored, of course, and tracked at all times).

 

Of course, I'd leave the details up to people who like details, but some sort of incentive program could be built into the structure, so that students gained priveleges and earned trust depending on their progress. Students who could not handle independence could receive extra supervision. Those who needed more academic assistance could be matched with tutors or get extra help from teachers during their office hours. Assignments could be more "project" oriented and less compartmentalized so that they would require more critical thinking, creativity, and real-world application. Students might use some of this open time for apprenticeships, volunteer work, gardening, political activism. There is no end to the possibilities.

 

Reality check. Of course I know that most kids just want to make paper airplanes and fart. I'm not saying that they should be given complete control. What I am saying is that perhaps public schools should employ more guidance and less instruction. Perhaps the approach should be to work with the best of adolescent nature, instead of fighting against the worst of it. Also, and not incidentally, not only would the structure encourage happier, less stressed students, I think it would result in happier, less stressed teachers. That, when it comes to fostering excellence, is the most important ingredient of all.

Quarters

Piles of things.
Towering, topsy-turvy
Collapsing
Stacks of hardly composed
Half decomposed
Scrawlings
On napkins
Trapped between unopened bills
Old food and dust
Encrust

Oh, what I'd give to have rooms full of light
Clean, fresh air,
Empty shelves
And a vast, smooth floor to dance across.

Raking Leaves

I'm raking leaves at midnight
The bright, high moon is mine
The neighbors hear me raking, scraping
Cuz the houses are so close
The little girl next door thinks I'm a ghost
She cries "mama! What's that sound?"
Her mother throws her bathrobe on
Wipes away her tears
Her father's nodding by the stairs saying
"Don't worry baby, it's just the crazy lady."

I'm raking leaves at midnight
Only now it is one.
If it were up to me, I'd let them lay
Since I think this autumn ritual dumb, even cruel
I've thought that forever, since I was that little girl.
My mother yelling at the cops
My father, raking, scraping, not making any other sound
And I'm soaking wet, pounding on the naked ground
Crying for the creatures, the universes he'd disturbed
Under the detritus
Under that same bright moon.

I'm raking leaves at midnight
Only now it is two
Raking around the fire-pit
Where you dragged the big old branch and threw
The chairs around
I knew.
Since the moon was hanging out then, too.
You could've raked the yard before you left
You would've done it properly
Mussing the hair of the little girl
As she's walking home from school
Trimming round the edges with a loud and special tool.

I'm raking leaves at midnight.
Only now it is three
That old dependable glowing stone
Bright and clear as the autumn air
I leave a corner or two alone
The edges rough and wild
For the universes undisturbed
and for possibilities
Preserved.

A week in the life of a the working poor in America

Doing time

Doing time

Doing time
Doing time
Doing time
Let me out, commit some crime
Judgment day
Then doing time.

 

Crocodile

I have a pet name for you: Crocodile

Since I remember your sharp eyes just above the water
The rest of you submerged in the murky memory
The room dissolved like floating sticks and algae
Not a ripple on the surface gave you away.

As you were dragging me through the mud my legs felt heavy.
If my throat wasn't frozen I would've told you who I was
Once, a scrappy little girl with matted hair
scrambling around on mossy rocks
Searching for salamanders
Now, a lady by the lake,
Singing and strumming her lute
Striving to seduce a piece of the universe
Pleading with the cool stars to cease their indifference.
Looking in the wrong direction when you decided to strike

While you forced me to the ground I wanted to hold you.
I wanted to tell you that I understand the stars' caprice
And what the dark bottom brings.
That there is only rock beneath your belly,
Not some fabled fire.
And that we were both naked when we entered the world
Exploring the same shapes and shadows

But let's cut the crap, now, Crococile
I have one small picture of you and
A little information
they say you "cried like a baby" in the interrogation
They say "not even your mother" cares about you.

You slipped off and left a mess back there, Crocodile
Riding home on an empty train with a can of malt liquor and a warm silver gun.
Your trembling prey stunned as they witnessed
The man that you murdered stumbling out into the open,
Bleeding from his back.

Now, the lady by the lake,
Has abandoned her lute.
And no longer bothers to beg the stars
She is too busy watching the water,
Crocodile.

America 2014

For an unsturdy space I squander wages on rent
Yet through these windy cracks no owed slip has slid
Of borrowing I know only the roof, a heavy lid
I strive not to meander as one much more meant.
Frugality summons the sum that is spent
On employment my time is smothered then rid
Of truancy I've not known the chime of the chid
And on vices expires no excessive expense
Medicines traded to furnish the dish
Strain not to struggle too much in their traps
The ties so severed one is surely to perish
With skin grown comfortable around the straps

My remains are defined by a figure of three
For the cremation of dreams, tis only a fee.