A warm evening.
The dread of all
poetry nights.
Will the venue be
all hot and sweaty?
Will we have
an audience, any poets?
I'll be honest.
I was starting to sweat
as the clock crept past.
My voice had been cast
into a dark abyss.
A dark abyss kept
under rumpled up carpets
where abyyses are swept.
so, I was thinking where would
our words come from.
Great clumps of hair
started to appear at my feet,
as I sat in my seat
gripping my head
ripping hairs out
thread by single painful thread.
As I sat there alone
time turned.
Slowly.
Like growing a pet stone,
it goes on forever.
Can I go home? I started to moan.
Then slowly people start to trickle in,
A stream. Complete with
little bubbling words
popping to the surface,
No great rivers
but picture postcard
perfect peaceful,
placating streams.
And as there were less people
we were less stressed,
So, we entered our little basement recess
and allowed words to profess.
We were a lot less worried about time
we gave everyone more time to shine,
let them delve deeper into their collective wells
and find
more treasures to tell
as we sat transfixed by their spells.
Then we gave the floor
to our headliner
to hear him roar.
Now Jae is a special poet,
he can make the earth
shake to its core,
I'll be honest I was more
than a little worried the ceiling
would cascade down on us all.
But instead, his words just wowed
the supporting crowd,
no need for a mic
his voice so very loud.
Buy his book!
Then we welcomed our open micers
back to the stage, I even read a poem,
though my back and throat ached.
The words were sublime,
the atmosphere a dream,
seems sometimes
all you need is a perfectly
orchestrated stream.
We dispersed into the night,
proud again of all of the open mic performers
who had taken the stage, the new and old faces.
Our headliner Jae Jenkins Scott
who literally raised the rafters,
the audience who joined with tears and laughter.
Our wonderful venue and its amazing crew.
Big Difference we love you.
And to ourselves
we managed to pull it off,
even though the sun was out!
