Tuesday nights are spoken word nights at Shadow Lounge. Slams are every third Tuesday. The poets are short on time (3 minutes or less), but long on inspiration. Yim and I saw DJ Brewer, Jah Liv, and Brian Francis perform, among others.
Brian was so sweet and amiable. I was glad to discover that he knows Stacey Waite, my poetry professor from Pitt.
I don’t think I’ll be a slam poet, but I’d like to get up there any other Tuesday and give it a shot. How about this:
California Thirst
The avenues host five-bedroom mansions
with treated lawns that drink sprinkled water
in the middle of a drought.
The alleys are lined with converted garages
that no longer house the Rolls,
but shelter government wage sailors
and the girls that shack up with them.
Sometimes, a nice looking girl will be seen
walking down the avenue
with a package of groceries. Her feet are bare
and she will turn discreetly
into the alley.
She lives in that old garage that is now a duplex.
That sailor she lives with surfs all day
and drinks all night.
She stabbed his board to death with the fire poker,
so he cut all the straps and heels from her shoes
with the garden shears.
There is never enough to drink.
I will read my poems slowly and rhythmically, ala Bukowski. Listen to him read The Genius of the Crowd, one of my all-time favorites.
[…] the enjoyment of the masses; Ricardo Iamuuri, Gene Stovall, and Brian Francis. Brian performed Here I Am, Awkward, and we reminisced. (Didn’t I just post about that […]
There like litle stories that keep you wanting to know more and they pack a punch. Sometimes there not so little.