Laughing heart

Your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

@Charles Bukowski

Bluebird

There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see you.

There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cogarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

There's a blue bird in my heart that
wants to ge out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
There's a bluebird in my heart that
wamts to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.

I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little in there,
I haven't quite let him die
and we sleep together like
that with our secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man weep,
but I don't weep, do you?

Critical Pedagogies and ELT: "American-style Teacher, What's my Score?"

Critical Pedagogies and ELT: "American-style Teacher, What's my Score?": The issue of assessment has already come up a couple of times this semester.  On my syllabus, I told learners that I would not be using any ...