Shut Up and Read Your Poems

He came.

Yeah, the Exterminator Man dropped by, and as they warned, they came in like gangbusters. I didn't even have the chance to open the door. They knocked and barged right in. What the fuck? It was late in the day when they arrived so I missed going to my therapy session. It's funny, they came at Two Twenty. I had to leave by Two. Fucked up isn't it. Here all day, and nothing. Now that I have to leave, they drop in right in the center of my commute time. This is full of shit. But there you have it.

Well, in my earlier post I was bitching about money grubbing corpor- ations and organiz- ations out after the new Federal Money that's out there. I'm talking about going after the New York State's version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Yeah baby. So I went online to the site on the Internet and filled out the fucking form. You got it. Since it's soon to be raining pennies from heaven, I'm grabbing a HAT! You betcha ass. I'm going to get my hands on this. OR at least try. Why not? I'm a hobo. What else do I have to lose? Or do, for that matter. Shit, WeeCARE (I wish I thought of that one) thinks I would better be using my time in one of their Job Farms, which they can shove up their fat asses.

Let's see how Governor Patterson feels about such an ambitious proposal? I'm going to rewrite the fucker to appeal to New York State, and show how it will make jobs and all that shit, and it will. See what flies. See if that shit will gain some fucking traction. I spend my afternoon rewriting the damn thing, taking my time of course. It is too involved to breeze through. This is true. I'm not in a hurry either. I'm going to move slowly but forcefully, like a three ton diesel rolling down hill against its brake.

Soon, all of this paperwork gives way to the clock. It is time to go. I pack up my shit, take my two books and head to the Way. It's a long mother fucking trip. I kid you not. It was so long that I had to consult the map a second time to make sure that I didn't miss the fucking stop. It just went on and on and on. A never ending ride deep into the heart of Brooklyn, the Borough Park Section. You can call it the Hell-and-motherfucking-gone section if you ask me. Even the sun didn't wait for me and decided to set while I was on my damn way there. When I got off at 18th Avenue, I was both relieved and grateful. It ended me off on a platform high up above the brownstone rooftops and in the breezy cold. I climbed downstairs and followed the directions on an email provided and easily found the restaurant.

I stopped to take pictures of the outside for the magazine that I write for because I forgot to do it he last time that I was here. While doing so, the owner comes to the front door and stands there watching me. When I enter he looks at me and says: "Insurance?" Why? What did you serve here to be worried about insurance? No, I didn't say that, I said that I was the reader tonight and wanted pictures to show my friends. That seemed to relax his ass. I walked straight back through a diner to a beautifully lit reception hall with a wide dance floor and tables arranged around it before mirrored walls. I quickly found a seat at the table amongst a group of my fellow poets and instantly began listening to the conversation. Two of them across from me were talking about types of poems, and a poetess from Chile who survived the coup in 1974 and was now living here in the states. She was supposed to write extraordinary verse and a must to see. I remained silent through this and many other exchanges, instead ordering dinner, which consisted of a cheese burger, fries and two glasses of red wine. Yeah, red wine. Wanna make something of it??

One by one, the readers were called up to take the dance floor as the open mic began. Mostly a much older crowd with very few people in their forties. Mostly the majority was over fifty, sixy, some even seventy. A mature crowd, reading very good poetry, but I noticed, they covered a lot of ground, but no one cursed. Not one swear word among them. No 'fuck', 'shit' or 'cocksucker' being uttered. That was not a good sign. I started to move my poems around in my two books, book marking others and editing out swear words in my head. I know my poetry is pedestrian, but it doesn't have to also be offensive.

There was a five minute break where the host of the venue, a diminutive and sweet mature woman in her sixties came to me and asked if I wanted to go first. I looked at my co-feature and he looked back at me. "I don't care, you can go first," he said.

I guess I'm going first then. And so it was, that after the break, I was called to the floor. I don't know if it was the wine or the LYRICA, but there was no fear in me at all. I was not in the zone as I was at the Wyoming, I didn't control this crowd, in fact, they controlled me. As I read my work I continued to edit out swear words, dropping the 'pussy' and 'cock' and 'fuck' as quickly as I went over them. That's how I realized they controlled me. I was not given the room to be myself. I was being edited by the crowd. I read quickly, ending just before my twenty minutes were up and as I cleared my books, I was asked to do an encore. Really? Now, in the audience were individuals that were at the Wyoming, and they called out for me to read one of the most rudest poems I've ever written. It's called I'M GOD GODDAMNIT!! Just to give you an idea of the content. I thought better not to read it, but...what the fuck??

I read through it, pure performance art, or I would quote it here in the blog. It went over like a brick, landing with a hard thud. I packed up my books and walked off the floor proudly. I kept my integrity. I didn't fold completely to their wishes. I felt vindicated. Shit, it beats feeling bad that I hit people older than me with a few harsh words. Fuck that.

The co-feature went and he did a great job. No cuss words in his work either. I was the only one that swore, and swore loudly. At the end, few came up to me to tell me that I did a good job, but the ones that did, I appreciated them for their graciousness.

"Hey," an old man, shriveled up by time limped over to me. "Hey, can I see your books?" I handed them over. He flipped through them. "I want to buy them," he tells me. What? "How much are they?" He asks. You've got to be kidding me. I didn't say this though, rather I told him that they were not for sale. He was crestfallen. I thought it over. I was having another copy of AND GOD BLEW BREATH shipped to me because there was an error in the first printing. So I smiled when he handed back the books and gave it to him. "How much," he asked. Free, I told him. He was ecstatic. "Wait here," he said to me and then ran off. He came back a moment later with three chapbooks. "Here, take one." I made a choice and he was twice as happy. "Thank you." No dude, thank you. You made my night.

The bunch of us hopped the Way back to the city with the bulk splitting off and leaving me with a Spanish speaking poetess, fairly attractive and sweet. She came up and sat next to me and my meters dropped. Something in me was quickly extinguished. I grew dark and silent, leaving her to chatter on. The ride seemed to take an eternity before my stop, which just happened to be her stop. We walked out and down the platform together and she sensed that I was closed down and quickly took off for her train, which was the L, whereas mine was the 1, 2 or 3. The reason why I know that she split to get away from me was because she took the stairs up to the exit, either not knowing, or not thinking I knew. I went downstairs to the L track and then to the end of the platform to go back upstairs to catch my trains. I didn't see her on the L platform.

So be it. No problem of mine. I wanted to get home at any rate and a long, steady conver- sation was not really needed.

What is the matter with me? Can't I be sociable at times? I know that I'm a people person but lately I've been closed off to many, especially new faces. I went food shopping when I got home. I had run out of everything in my room and needed to replenish my supplies. I got some grub and dropped my sorry ass in my room but quick.

It was late but I still blogged and checked email. Even wrote three poems.

Then I called it a night.
Shit, I sold a book.
Fuck.

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