<div class="line">So many things that still feel new</div>
<div class="line">are old, and that’s the way it goes.</div>
<div class="line">This is what always happens to</div>
<div class="line">so many things that still feel new.</div>
<div class="line">I think of how I have loved you</div>
<div class="line">all these years, and that just shows</div>
<div class="line">so many things that still feel new</div>
<div class="line">feel new because of the life we chose.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/StanizziCarol.mp3"></audio></figure>

Baptized

In the House of God

Triolet for Carol

<p class="epil"><em>Bacon Academy<br />Colchester, CT<br />October 31st, 2001</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">1.</p>
<div class="line">Shortly after 9/11,</div>
<div class="line">a boy who had been stealing pick-up trucks</div>
<div class="line">from a local dealership</div>
<div class="line">and hiding them in the woods</div>
<div class="line">so he could sell them later,</div>
<div class="line">decided to fashion a fake bomb</div>
<div class="line">and place it on the loading dock</div>
<div class="line">outside the cafeteria</div>
<div class="line">on Halloween morning.</div>
<div class="line">We, of course, were all still</div>
<div class="line">emotionally threadbare</div>
<div class="line">and sent into a frazzle.</div>
<div class="line">The first order of the morning</div>
<div class="line">was to stop the buses</div>
<div class="line">before they got into the parking lot,</div>
<div class="line">and not let the kids into the school.</div>
<div class="line">As each top-heavy yellow clunker</div>
<div class="line">pulled its plume of blue smoke into the drive,</div>
<div class="line">we stopped it and tried to explain</div>
<div class="line">what was going on,</div>
<div class="line">without freaking out the vampires,</div>
<div class="line">witches, monsters, and ghosts,</div>
<div class="line">12 buses,</div>
<div class="line">each filled with high school kids</div>
<div class="line">all being something else for the day.</div>
<div class="line">We sent the buses to the elementary school,</div>
<div class="line">where all 800 ghouls</div>
<div class="line">would hang out in the tiny gym</div>
<div class="line">until the danger had passed.</div>
<div class="line">Take a moment here to imagine that.</div>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">2.</p>
<div class="line">I thought of my own youth—</div>
<div class="line">different time, same fear—</div>
<div class="line">the old days of “duck and cover,”</div>
<div class="line">air raid horn baying at the spring sky,</div>
<div class="line">and all of us either balled up under our desks,</div>
<div class="line">or standing, boy girl boy girl</div>
<div class="line">against the cool, cool</div>
<div class="line">painted cinder block walls</div>
<div class="line">in the shadowy hallways of St. Mary’s,</div>
<div class="line">the perfume of lilacs</div>
<div class="line">in the breeze that breathed there,</div>
<div class="line">or before me, in England,</div>
<div class="line">the shelters in underground tubes,</div>
<div class="line">railway arches, subways,</div>
<div class="line">and my Auntie Elsie,</div>
<div class="line">staring in dread at the ceiling</div>
<div class="line">in the shelter in her cellar.</div>
<div class="line">And later,</div>
<div class="line">after the Russians did their bomb,</div>
<div class="line">and Yuri Gagarin swirled around in our sky,</div>
<div class="line">General Foods and General Mills</div>
<div class="line">sold dried war rations,</div>
<div class="line">and the nuclear protection suit was a hot item.</div>
<div class="line">Wall Streeters even claimed</div>
<div class="line">that the bomb shelter business</div>
<div class="line">would gross billions in the coming years,</div>
<div class="line">if there were any.</div>
<div class="line">And every day</div>
<div class="line">the radio sizzled warnings</div>
<div class="line">that a shoddy, homemade shelter</div>
<div class="line">would get you broiled “to a crisp”</div>
<div class="line">or squeezed “like grapefruit,”</div>
<div class="line">as in American neighborhoods</div>
<div class="line">people built “wine cellars,”</div>
<div class="line">or else the contractors worked</div>
<div class="line">under cover of night.</div>
<div class="line">I cried into our couch</div>
<div class="line">for 14 days straight in 1962,</div>
<div class="line">and I didn’t even really know why</div>
<div class="line">beyond the fact that all the adults</div>
<div class="line">seemed quiet and scared,</div>
<div class="line">and I understood the word annihilation,</div>
<div class="line">and saw, over and over again,</div>
<div class="line">the documentary where the house</div>
<div class="line">gets blown away sideways</div>
<div class="line">by a speeding cloud of nuclear winter.</div>
<div class="line">But the bomb never fell,</div>
<div class="line">even though everyone,</div>
<div class="line">including me,</div>
<div class="line">kept fear in their hearts,</div>
<div class="line">and spent years</div>
<div class="line">practicing for the end,</div>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">3.</p>
<div class="line">and it’s the same now.</div>
<div class="line">When the kids returned to school</div>
<div class="line">later that morning,</div>
<div class="line">we tried to resume a</div>
<div class="line">typical Halloween</div>
<div class="line">in a typical American high school,</div>
<div class="line">the kids dressed to kill,</div>
<div class="line">the sugar-high higher</div>
<div class="line">because they were back on familiar ground.</div>
<div class="line">But the party didn’t last long.</div>
<div class="line">Soon a voice filled with urgency</div>
<div class="line">squawked over the perpetual loudspeaker</div>
<div class="line">that we needed to immediately</div>
<div class="line">go into the “S-plan.”</div>
<div class="line"><em>Ignore all fire alarms and bells.</em></div>
<div class="line"><em>Students in the hallway</em></div>
<div class="line">should run to the nearest classroom.</div>
<div class="line"><em>Teachers lock your classroom door.</em></div>
<div class="line">Do not let ANYONE in.</div>
<div class="line"><em>If students ask to be let in,</em></div>
<div class="line">do not let them in.</div>
<div class="line">Direct them to the office.</div>
<div class="line">Do not let them in.</div>
<div class="line"><em>Cover the windows</em></div>
<div class="line">with the black paper</div>
<div class="line">that you’ve put aside</div>
<div class="line">for this occasion.</div>
<div class="line"><em>Huddle all your students</em></div>
<div class="line">into the corner,</div>
<div class="line">away from the windows and doors.</div>
<div class="line"><em>Do not use the school phone</em></div>
<div class="line">or your cell phone.</div>
<div class="line"><em>Stay there until you receive instructions.</em></div>
<div class="line">And we did. For two hours,</div>
<div class="line">me and the bum,</div>
<div class="line">the Ninja Turtle,</div>
<div class="line">the Queen of Hearts,</div>
<div class="line">fear in the eyes behind the masks,</div>
<div class="line">fear in the tears of the ballerina.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/StanizziPlan.mp3"></audio></figure>

What I Didn’t Learn in School

Mother, Mother Ocean

S-Plan

<div class="line">So many things that still feel new</div>
<div class="line">are old, and that’s the way it goes.</div>
<div class="line">This is what always happens to</div>
<div class="line">so many things that still feel new.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I think of how I have loved you</div>
<div class="line">all these years, and that just shows</div>
<div class="line">so many things that still feel new</div>
<div class="line">feel new because of the life we chose.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/StanizziCarol.mp3"></audio></figure>

Burka

Instead of a Victorian Novel I Write a Victorian Poem

<p>It begins with a mistake<br />while they are rushing through<br />what they call “busy work,”<br />some assignment you<br />find a drag as well,<br />having concocted it<br />so that you can tell<br />parents you wouldn’t permit<br />a lack of rigor to seep<br />into the classes you teach.<br />A moment before they sleep,<br />stupefied kids reach<br />for the mouse and click<br />the spell check as the last<br />charade in the high school schtick.<br />And the word that will never pass<br />is their take on definitely,<br />which they can never spell.<br />Spell check suggests defiantly,<br />but you can always tell<br />that what they really meant<br />was unambiguous,<br />something adamant,<br />but in their thoughtless rush<br />they push the enter key<br />and that’s the end of that.<br />Yet it doesn’t bother you<br />when they turn out the light<br />having finished the task,<br />held their end of the deal.<br />And tomorrow when you ask<br />for the work, they’ll feel<br />around inside their packs,<br />and emerge with a wrinkly mess<br />which you will gladly take<br />in spite of its meaninglessness.<br />You may give them a cursory read,<br />and then again maybe not;<br />written in a teenage trance,<br />it’s better that it’s all forgot.<br />No. You’re being defiant, you<br />and the kids in this room.<br />They know the drill too;<br />this will not matter soon.<br />You believe this definitely.<br />You’d rather see them play<br />the game defiantly<br />than let them walk away<br />absolutely sure<br />that as soon as they graduate<br />it’s off to the allure<br />of the future and a date<br />with everything they’ve ever planned.<br />Even the dutiful,<br />who seem so sapped of life,<br />confused and beautiful,<br />and concerned only with<br />what their parents will say,<br />their position in the class,<br />the almighty GPA,<br />and the terror of being last,<br />while working obediently,<br />can’t even get it right;<br />they click on defiantly,<br />and turn out the bedroom light.<br />Just once you’d love to see<br />them flip you off and smile;<br />that would definitely be<br />an act defiantly wild,<br />an act to be remembered,<br />no matter how it’s spelled.</p><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/StanizziDefiantly.mp3"></audio></figure>

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August 15, 2024Triolet for CarolJohn L. Stanizzi

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