Chris Petruccelli
Ode to English 111x as Foghorn Leghorn Featuring: An Introduction from an Anonymous Student
Or, Don’t Worry, I Failed My First College English Paper Too—A Sestina
After Paul Guest
This was the point in time
where I got my first
tasted
that school Sucks
and it makes me do thinks
I do not want to do.
Lookit here, boy, whaddya think you’re gonna do?
I said time,
son, it’s time to think
about it—time, son, for the first
in your life, it all sucks,
done left a rotten taste
in your mouth and it tasted
as bad as that last paper do.
Sucks, boy, to get hit where the feathers are thinnest, sucks
but it won’t be the last time
and do you think it was the first?
What do you think
now, think, boy, think
about that fowl taste--
foul/fowl, son, a joke boy, a gag—the first
lickin’ you got and plenty more in due
time. It all comes in time, but every time
it sucks.
Now, I say boy, I say all that whoopin’ sucks,
but you’ve got to think boy, I said you’ve got to think
about all this time--
I’m not just talkin’ to hear my head roar, but to taste
all the words on my breath like dew
and to remember, the first
I said, yes son I said, remember the first
time I wrote all them fancy words and they sucked,
as they’re wont to do,
and I couldn’t help but think
myself a flavorless bird—no salt, no taste.
But all it took son, was time--
every time, son, it got better since the first
bad taste of those words that sucked.
Think, boy, it’s all I’d ever ask you to do.
Or, Don’t Worry, I Failed My First College English Paper Too—A Sestina
After Paul Guest
This was the point in time
where I got my first
tasted
that school Sucks
and it makes me do thinks
I do not want to do.
Lookit here, boy, whaddya think you’re gonna do?
I said time,
son, it’s time to think
about it—time, son, for the first
in your life, it all sucks,
done left a rotten taste
in your mouth and it tasted
as bad as that last paper do.
Sucks, boy, to get hit where the feathers are thinnest, sucks
but it won’t be the last time
and do you think it was the first?
What do you think
now, think, boy, think
about that fowl taste--
foul/fowl, son, a joke boy, a gag—the first
lickin’ you got and plenty more in due
time. It all comes in time, but every time
it sucks.
Now, I say boy, I say all that whoopin’ sucks,
but you’ve got to think boy, I said you’ve got to think
about all this time--
I’m not just talkin’ to hear my head roar, but to taste
all the words on my breath like dew
and to remember, the first
I said, yes son I said, remember the first
time I wrote all them fancy words and they sucked,
as they’re wont to do,
and I couldn’t help but think
myself a flavorless bird—no salt, no taste.
But all it took son, was time--
every time, son, it got better since the first
bad taste of those words that sucked.
Think, boy, it’s all I’d ever ask you to do.
Chris Petruccelli is currently putting his Alolan expedition on hold while living and working in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. You can find his poetry in Appalachian Heritage, Cider Press Review, Nashville Review, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and elsewhere. If you've got the time, check out his chapbook Action at a Distance (Etchings Press). Chris is really diggin' caves these days.