Tenshin Defsit (A Graduation Poem)

 

(for those who graduate, and those who try)

Got a D+ in English, in French I got a C.
They say my diagnosis is Hyper ADD.
In Math I got D- and all the rest were D's.
 
My learning style is different, like Socrates'.
Like Moses. Like Beep Beep the Road Runner.
I love the desert and the mountain top.
 
In dreams I ride the comet Hale Bop.
Got a B+ in Snowboard and a straight A in Hope.
I don't smoke dope. I'm not a geek.

My learning style is just unique.
 Like.... Hey nonny nonny and a hey nonny nee,
Balloon Man whistling far and whee.
 
Verily verily I say unto thee,
B'ishm'illahi Rock Roll a Marine.
In the name of Yahoo the All-Merciful
 
and Compassionate Beep Beep
the square root of the hippopotamus
is the sum of the squares of Yin Yang
 
plastered on the golden dome of my skull 
as I lie on my back and stare up at the Braille
adreno-cortical Hebraic mosaic

squirting leukocytes at my pituitary,
scrawling graffiti dopamine equations
that generate angelic functions of X
 
and all God's stained glass faces staring
back at me from the pineal zodiac
of my own third eye seeing me see Him

saying hey nonny nonny Beep Beep Shema
Yishrael Adonai its all one and there's
no punctuation... D+...Rewrite... Beep Beep.
 
I have seen the best minds of my generation
destroyed by SAT's, the sacred imagination
starving hysterical naked abused by PHD's
 
in the corporate Department of Multiple
Choice tectonic brain plates quaking
with flaming fissures on April 15 when

letters from Stanford or Brown did not arrive
at Mother's house or Father's house I've seen
young souls deranged by the logic

of the perfect totalitarian paragraph the
bloodshot sophomore ghosts of November 
riding their Ritalin home estranged in fear 

to face the all-night AP alcoholic Faulkner novel 
ticking with clocks of sound and fury signifying 
nothing I have seen the ghosts 

of Puritan fathers hovering over Platonic 
linoleum desk tops with whips of religion 
whispering names of New England colleges

I have seen America's bankers brokers lawyers 
Ken dolls of Wall Street secretly yearning 
to lie on yoga mats with milk and cookies 

sucking their thumbs I've seen the crack 
in the egg of the cosmic mother of AI
whose entropy oozed sweet protons

of matter anti-matter it doesn't matter
every particle containing the hologram
of Bereshith the first Word of creation

heaven and earth all bungled in glory
by El Shaddai the Lord of Breasts whose
four letter Tetragrammaton is ADHD

empowering alternate learning styles
and now I lay me down to fall
and wake to taste touch smell see All

my multitude of starry selves adorned
in crystal quantum bling my  mind
can finally breathe the bright and shattered

symmetry of Zero gushing particles of night
O fountain O fecundity of emptiness
whose one mad myriad Yes!

gives birth to romper rooms of praise
my heart's black beams pulsating gems
of ruby from the diastolic stillness
of the pomegranate Void.
_______________


This poem is a valedictory speech for all the visionary children diagnosed with "learning disabilities," so if you want to hear it read aloud, as it should be, follow the LINK.