Nooks and Crannies

For the past year I've lived in a tiny house, with no backyard or dishwasher, a good air conditioner and an even better location. I'm down the street from downtown, a Redbox, farmer's market, local coffee shop and most importantly, the library. The last fact I didn't realize until a few weeks ago, but I've taken advantage of the situation ever since. I forgot how much fun it is to borrow a book and not care if it's less than enjoyable because I didn't pay for it.
The library is small, but I've happened upon some awesome reads. One of which, a book of poetry, that randomly caught my eye, while I was searching for the fiction section (I blinked and accidentally walked past it). The book, How to be Perfect, reminded me of how fun poetry can be: I haven't read any since my Modern Poetry class in college.
ENG 400-something consisted of about 20 students and one liberal Jewish, jeans and blazer wearing professor- he just happened to have a red headed daughter named Allison. I'm not sure if that scored me extra points, but he certainly mentioned it a time or two. Not only did we read poetry, but we wrote it. Every week we would bring in our newly crafted poem, pass out copies to our eager classmates and sit around and talk about the writing of our peers. I'm sure I would be embarrassed if I re-read those poems, I feel there would be an intense air of naivety, especially compared to my classmates who wrote about sex, love, alcohol, disgust, oppression- most of which I had never experienced.
The class was hard, but the good kind of hard. The kind that made me want to try harder, even when I had no idea what I was trying to do. The professor was passionate about all things; poetry, education, family, writing, and everything in between. He is the kind of person that gets fired about things that no one else even notices: I remember he once spent 20 minutes describing how crazy it is that college is about freedom and choice yet we put so much stress on tests, grades and class times. (What an outrage!)
I fell in love with poetry and some time after the class was over, I forget I loved it. I continued my lifetime affair with novels, and poetry became the one night stand I rarely thought about. But standing there in the library last weekend, I picked up Padgett's book and it filled me with memories of how intricate and complicated and fun poetry is.
One poem in particularly rekindled the fire and so, I share it with you. Enjoy the genre of writing that allows us to take two minutes out of our day (no more needed) to think, question, and best of all, laugh.

Mortal Combat

You can't tell yourself not to think
of the English muffin because that's what
you just did, and now the idea
of the English muffin has moved
to your salivary glands and caused
a ruckus. But I am more powerful
than you, salivary glands, stronger
than you, idea, and able to leap
over you, thoughts that keep coming
like an invading army trying to pull
me away from who I am. I am
a squinty old fool stooped over
his keyboard having an anxiety attack
over an English muffin! And
that's the way I like it.