I hate that cat
like a dog hates a rat
I said I hate that cat
like a dog hates a rat

Hate to see it in the morning
hate to see that
F A T black cat.

September 13

Sorry
I didn't know
you liked cats.
Didn't know
you have one.

September 14

More poetry?
You probably think
we will remember
what we learned
last year, right?

What if we don't remember?
What if our brains shrunk?
What if it's too hard?

But I am glad
you are my teacher
again.
I hope you will
keep moving up
a grade
every year
along with me.

You understand
my
brain.

September 19

No, I can't write any more
about my dog Sky.
Maybe all of the words
about Sky
flew out of my head
last year.

I think about him
all the time
and I see him
in my mind
and some of his yellow fur
is still on my yellow chair
and sometimes I think
I hear him
uh-rum, uh-rum
that sound he made
when he was happy.

But no, I can't write about Sky
a-n-y-m-o-r-e.
Maybe I could write about
a cat
a mean cat
a crazy mean fat black cat.

Although . . . my uncle Bill
who is a teacher
in a college
said those words I wrote
about Sky
were NOT poems.
He said they were just
words
coming
out
of
my
head
and that a poem has to rhyme
and have regular meter
and SYMBOLS and METAPHORS
and onomoto-something and
alliter-something.

And I wanted
to
punch
him.

September 21

Another thing Uncle Bill said
was that my lines should be
l - o - n - g - e - r
like in real writing

But here is what happens when I try to
make them longer the page is too wide and
the words get all mumble jumbled and it
makes my eyes hurt all that white space the
edge of the page so far away and in order to
get all the words down that are coming out
of my head I have to forget the commas and
periods or I have to go back and stick, them
in, all over, the place, like this, which
looks, if you ask me, stupid, but if you write
short lines, a person knows where to
breathe, short or long, and I hate to read,
those long lines, and I don't want, to write
them, either.

September 26

I wish you would tell
my uncle Bill
all those things you said today
about our own rhythms
and our own IMAGES
bouncing around in our words
and making them POEMS./And yes I understand
that if I am ever the
President of the United States
I might be expected to write
very very long lines
but in the meantime
I can make my lines
short
short
short
if I want to.

But even if you told
my uncle Bill
all that stuff
he wouldn't believe you.
He likes to argue./My mother likes my
short
lines.
She runs her fingers
down them
and then
taps
her lips
once, twice./And I think I understood
what you said about
onomoto-something
and alliter-something
not HAVING to be
in a poem
and how sometimes
they ENRICH a poem
but sometimes
they can also make a poem
sound purple.

Purple!
Ha ha ha.