One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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so last Thursday night, because I had a political poem
I wanted to drop on this outpost of middle class
republican conservatives, whom I know that in their
hearts there is still a corner of some human feeling,
especially if they lost their good paying jobs,
who are so into their SUVs and 52 inch plasmas,
I thought I’d stir them up, aggravate them at least.

so jo and I haul ourselves off to the town museum
where this monthly poetry shindig takes place.
I have to say that the goodies they serve that they
con from one of the two bucks a cup of coffee joints,
is pretty good and attracts more than a few non-poets
wearing second hand jackets from the goodwill store.

so what's to say. we sign in, jo third, me almost last.
give them less time to hate my stuff.

something ain't right.

the first two readers, hey, yes, I suppose it's poetry,
or something, after all, it's being read off a page
so it's gotta have something to do with literature, huh!
this poor woman is wiggling and shaking and if I
didn’t know better, I'd say she was in the middle
of a stroke because non of the lines, or utterings,
are making any sense.
you know what? when she’s finished,
the audience applauds. compassion, I don’t know.
then jo goes up and does one of her real life
happening I'm a woman poems and the audience,
the women especially, those who have been there,
dig her and show it.

okay, I have to slog through about ten readers before
I read. and I don’t make waves and sit back and listen.

do you remember back in the eighties
when some women poets would drone their poems.
I'm talking drone! this women, who is also a teacher
of creative writing droned like she was croaking,
every line, every word, drone. no one’s putting her
out of her misery. mercy, where’s the mercy.
this ain’t poetry, this is the emergency room and
she ain't getting any help. polite applause. kindness.

following, four guys, poets, that’s a stretch, immediately
my memory goes to that movie, the one with
jack nicholson, the one that takes place in a nut house
and I'm seeing all these guys sitting around talking,
at least making sounds with their mouths, incoherent,
that’s what I'm seeing and hearing as one follows the other
shouting words. I'm not a doctor but you don’t
need to be a doctor to know this screaming and hollering
ain't coming from poets, cuckoos, that’s what I'm hearing
and I'm sitting in the front row with feathers flying.

then a couple more teachers. no way, I head off to
the rest room figuring I could hide there until my shot
comes up. politeness is rewarded in heaven
and I know I'm not going there anyhow.

I get up and read my poem and I get a healthy
applause so I figure that some of the audience
is probably out of work or had to settle
for flipping burgers at the local Carl’s Jr.

I'm not last, the guy who runs the show and his lady
are last so I sit down. they're going to do
some kind of a poetry duet, he reads a line and she
finishes it and the schtick goes on for almost ten minutes.
I have no idea what the hell it was all about.
this is a teacher? no wonder the kids come out
of school nuts, illiterate at best.

man, I'm out of place in this suburban shithouse.
if not for jo, you got it, I'd be living down on Clark Street,
yeah, not the part with condos and fancy flats,
the part where there's rooming houses and
cheap restaurants, yeah, and maybe there's
still a diner or two and real people to talk too.