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My First Poetry Reading
2003-04-26 - 3:20 p.m.


before/after
strangely non-functional guestbook

After the near brush with the law dog, I went home and got some poems.

It was to be my first poetry reading.  An open mic reading at the local coffee shop.

I kept my speeds down and made my way to the reading.  Walking through the doors, I saw a balding man with a closely trimmed coiffe banging away at the piano and howling in a manner I've heard cats make in the heights of passion.

Ignoring the blood from my ears, I made my way through the eclectic crowd, the old, the young, the hip and the squares, and bought a cup from the cute coffee girl, the girl dressed in pink and looking succulent and young, delictable in her fresh faced enthusiasm and guiless way of facing the world.

I fumbled with the cup and the coffee choices when a buxom blond girl with slits for eyes came up to me and ran her hand over my tricep.

"De-caffineted?"  she asked, giving me the sloe-eye.

"Umm, yeah,"  I said, non-plussed, "Is that bad?"

"Yeah, that's wrong."  she said, and sat down.

There was no obvious seats, so I milled about in front of the coffee counter, to the consternation of the succulent coffee jerk.

"Do you need something?"  she asked, blinking her doey eyes.  In the background, the effeminate man howled.

"No thank you, just milling about."  I said.

I found a seat.  Sat down.

The effeminate man opened up a blue pamphlet of his poems and offered to belt one out.  They gave him a microphone.  Then he gave a prologue about a song he wrote about watching the girl he loved make out with another guy.

I stifled my derisive thoughts and noises.  However, later I would corner him on the details.

I turned to the buxom blonde girl who was taking pictures of everyone in the joint with a professional looking camera, and asked where I could sign up.  She handed me a mailing list sign up, which turned out to be the sign up.

I signed my name.  The effeminate man caterwauled out another song, hammering at the keyboard and was done.

The MC got up and then announced my name.

Well, that didn't take long.

I got up and said some self-deprecating things. 

"This is my first reading, so please be nice.  And if you dont like it, I'm sitting right by the door, I will just shoot straight on outta' here."

Scant laughs.

I grabbed a chair and pulled the wad of poems out of my pocket.  I wasn't nervous.  Crowds don't make me nervous. 

I unfolded the wad and sat, explained a bit about the first one as it related to my travels and read.  It was about eye contact.

Rousing applause.

I thanked them and continued, saying my next one was about 'desire and anticipation'.

I read the next one, which was about friends, and wanting to hold them close, and hold onto the moments and live in those moments like bugs in amber.

More applause.

The next poem, I said, was about desire and anticipation.  I thought quickly about the old women in the audience, and decided "what the fuck?" and did it.

It was a very sexual poem about a girlfriend that I just...I just HAD to be inside her, like seemingly always.  I'd look at her and my cock would get hard, you know?

The girls in the audience looked at each other.  They liked it.

More applause.  As I read, I dropped the sheets around me on the floor.  They fell like snowflakes, making a blanket at my feet.

And the last two poems were about memories, with many drug references in them.  They loved that, too.

I finished to applause, grabbed my empty coffee cup and went to get more coffee.  Immediately I was pounced on by a pale complected girl with dark hair and braces.

She was an excited little chatterbox, very insecuere.  Both of her parents were dead.  She repeatedly said, "I'm not hitting on you," which didn't help her out at all.  I did well, my eyes didn't wander so much, despite the fact that she was just a type of person that doesn't fit well with my laidback sensibilities.

She chattered for awhile and I thought of Bukowski.  I missed the rest of the reading, but I wanted to be nice to her and give her attention, despite the fact that I was absolutely not attracted to her.  Not in any real sense, other than my own libido.

Besides, she wasn't hitting on me.  Told me that more than once.

Her friends came and got her, while she rabidly tried to get my phone number.  I graciously asked for hers and she left.

I grabbed some more coffee and ran into the effeminate man.

He complimented me on my poems.

"So, that song you wrote, about seeing the girl you loved make out with another guy-" I asked.

"Yeah, I was at a party, I was like, 'this sucks, I'm gonna' write a song', and I looked up and she was all over this guy, making out with him.  And I was like, 'awwwwwww'."  he said.

"Oh.  That sucks."  I said, "Was she your girlfriend?" 

"No. She'd get drunk and we'd sort of make out."

"Oh, so you were hooking up?"

"Well, sorta'."

I felt a hearty wild laugh coming on, along with the urge to call the guy a pussy.

"You were fucking her, right?  I mean, this is pretty personal, but..."

He muttered something but it was clear that he hadn't been fucking her.  I so wanted to say something like, "Watch your love fuck another guy, and then come back and talk to me, junior.  You have no idea.  It will change your whole perspective.", but I demurred.  Fuck dude, you gotta' take a whole hearted bite out of life if your gonna' be a poet.  You cannot be a dilettante.  But it all has its place.

He showed me this picture of a salvadoran girl he was courting, who couldn't speak english and lived a city away.  I was passively appreciative.

Several other people came up and talked to me, I really didn't have a moment to sit and think.  They all like my stuff.  The publication that sponsored the reading wanted me to submit for publication.  One of the old women invited me to a summer poetry reading in a park in a city a ways away on the lakeshore.  I met a lot of people, who all seemed very nice and accepting.  Their clique seemed ready to adopt me.

And the buxom girl who was taking pictures worked for the newspaper.  She gave me her phone number.


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