Poetry Slam (I’m Slurring Cuz Mah Spoken Iz Broken)

Amiss are the days
Of the Poetry Slam.

The sweaty mosh pit
Of literature
The punk fucking rock
And acidic noise of
Poets slam dancing
In circles
Epileptic
Lunging and pulling
The crash junkies
Like warm tar
Into a mess of reverbed words
Spilling stories
Onto wooden floors
With their cheap beer
Dropping rhythm
With the grey ash
Of their shaking
Cigarette
Cadent movement
To the moulded words
Passing through the blistered lips of
Pirates, dykes, drunks and revolutionaries
Ad hoc troublemakers
Painters, musicians, spiritualists
Fags, hip hoppers, eccentrics
Disease survivors and feminists
And always the few people that would
Write the pretty poems
Or the rhyming poems
That would have done better to have
Just stayed home.

It was a place to bury strangers.

The audience could be vicious dogs
Bloodhounding in on the jugular.

They were mostly fellow poets
Drunk on wine and blood.

They neutered the ones with the grey plasma
And flowery words
The ones that thought their homes were good
Their books were read
And shelved in alphabetical order
Book spines perfect and aligned
Gardens tended and watered.

The sun always coming in
Through their windows.

At worst
The price of milk
Was going up again.

That was THEIR madness.

And...

With very little patience
The dogs would set upon that poor poet
Attacking
Teeth flashing
Saliva flying through the smokey air.

They wanted it to end quickly.

They wanted to send the weak
On their way
Limping
To poetry workshops
Held at local libraries
By housewives with free time
And a gift
For giving the respect
The smiles
The pat on the back

That
That kind of poetry
So justly deserves.