No Bones.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Last Call at the Beauty Bar
We burn fast and hard across an ink black sky , leaving short-lived trails in our wake. Waiting to awake in startling white marble columned coffee shops. Turning heads of ancient prophets who recognize truth with a frown but honesty with a nod. And we come clean in the spotlight. We tell all our dirty secrets one rhyme at a time. We confess our evils in seventeen syllables. We profess love in stanza and politics in prose. Our introductions are all just different ways to say,
“Forgive me, father. For I have sinned.”
And we absolve ourselves over pints of blood in a café with our good friend “mic”, who grins and says,
“Where ya been?”
“Around. You?”
“Just waiting for something to say.”
And we always have something to say. Rest assured, our egos can fill the concert halls in our minds with Aria’s and Minuet’s, lasting hours in our three minutes. We are up here, because when we are not, we’re afraid we’ll stay invisible.
I wish I were an exception. And, like those before me, I am sometimes able to convince myself that I am. But the vinyl life, when pressed under the needle of scrutiny, sings blue notes against a background of golden warm pops and cracks.
Wanting to reach just one in the crowd. Wanting you all to be on the high with me, yelling,
“Drop that shit, yo! Drop that shit!”
I want to rock a poem with a beat that won’t come clean. I want to mix words in time to the crowds collective heart beat, raising the roof as well as their minds.
But I don’t have an ounce of hip-hop in me. Just Keats, and Byron, and Shelly, and Service, and Kipling, and Poe. Listening to my verse that flows more than hits and whispering,
“Drop that shit, yo.. Drop that shit…”
But even then, I’m less noble than that. Even then, I’m hiding. Stealing the good parts from bad poems and stitching them in now. Knowing that I too have whored out my art.
I’ve written poetry to get laid. Never worked.
I’ve written poetry to get love. Shouldn’t have worked.
I’ve written poetry to get noticed. Works every time.
So, here it is. It’s just us now. And we are your emotional marionettes. We are the boogie men under your bed. The skeletons in your closet. The ghosts under your good sheets. And we feed on choices. You are here and it makes all the difference. We can fling words at the sky and drink pages of poetry from a bottle of wine. We can sign our names next to goodbye. We can be self important, self assured, self effacing, take ourselves far to seriously, or take far too long on the mic. And none of it means anything without you to bring it to.
You see. We are pointless poets without you here. And you will teach us how to write poetry without words. As you move us, and validate us, and inspire us with your applause. And in this moment. This connection between author, poet, and prophets who nod, we will, if only for a moment, understand poetry. ¶ 1:47 AM 3 comments
We burn fast and hard across an ink black sky , leaving short-lived trails in our wake. Waiting to awake in startling white marble columned coffee shops. Turning heads of ancient prophets who recognize truth with a frown but honesty with a nod. And we come clean in the spotlight. We tell all our dirty secrets one rhyme at a time. We confess our evils in seventeen syllables. We profess love in stanza and politics in prose. Our introductions are all just different ways to say,
“Forgive me, father. For I have sinned.”
And we absolve ourselves over pints of blood in a café with our good friend “mic”, who grins and says,
“Where ya been?”
“Around. You?”
“Just waiting for something to say.”
And we always have something to say. Rest assured, our egos can fill the concert halls in our minds with Aria’s and Minuet’s, lasting hours in our three minutes. We are up here, because when we are not, we’re afraid we’ll stay invisible.
I wish I were an exception. And, like those before me, I am sometimes able to convince myself that I am. But the vinyl life, when pressed under the needle of scrutiny, sings blue notes against a background of golden warm pops and cracks.
Wanting to reach just one in the crowd. Wanting you all to be on the high with me, yelling,
“Drop that shit, yo! Drop that shit!”
I want to rock a poem with a beat that won’t come clean. I want to mix words in time to the crowds collective heart beat, raising the roof as well as their minds.
But I don’t have an ounce of hip-hop in me. Just Keats, and Byron, and Shelly, and Service, and Kipling, and Poe. Listening to my verse that flows more than hits and whispering,
“Drop that shit, yo.. Drop that shit…”
But even then, I’m less noble than that. Even then, I’m hiding. Stealing the good parts from bad poems and stitching them in now. Knowing that I too have whored out my art.
I’ve written poetry to get laid. Never worked.
I’ve written poetry to get love. Shouldn’t have worked.
I’ve written poetry to get noticed. Works every time.
So, here it is. It’s just us now. And we are your emotional marionettes. We are the boogie men under your bed. The skeletons in your closet. The ghosts under your good sheets. And we feed on choices. You are here and it makes all the difference. We can fling words at the sky and drink pages of poetry from a bottle of wine. We can sign our names next to goodbye. We can be self important, self assured, self effacing, take ourselves far to seriously, or take far too long on the mic. And none of it means anything without you to bring it to.
You see. We are pointless poets without you here. And you will teach us how to write poetry without words. As you move us, and validate us, and inspire us with your applause. And in this moment. This connection between author, poet, and prophets who nod, we will, if only for a moment, understand poetry. ¶ 1:47 AM 3 comments
