they taught us to write poems at varisty

start with a brick

said the professor

who had spent the last 20 years

in that chair

enough of the i i i

me me me

start with a butterfly

the pavement

write about that

he said

(with his young assistant

- feminist -

schooled in Bukowski)

and so he we did.

we trotted around

eyes to the sky

looking for poems

unable,

despite instruction,

to see the cracks

widening

the pavement

me

I really wanted to write about the girl

who had recently

...

and I knew

also

that all he had on us,

that professor,

was a couple of decades

of bad verse

narrowed horizons

and thwarted ambitions

he wanted us to see his cracks

and widen them

carve out dark clouds

with our words

but we were only 18, 19, 20

and,

even worse,

we were white kids

writing in Africa

now

looking back

I think

pity...

we could have learned a lot more

about poetry

if he had just sat back

and wept