cubistpoet

Regret is for suckers, she said,
and I knew right then and there that
had to be the first line to a poem.

But where would that poem go?
Where would this poem go?

What twisted pathways would my words walk along,
tip-toeing across rope-bridge chasms
of false-starts, false-endings,
which I've heard from a little bird
named Talyor Mali are a problem
in slam poems though he would shake his finger
and tsk, tsk, tsk at me for using such a term as slam poetry.

I could talk about my regrets,
like falling face first into a writer's block
of cold hard brick standing between me
and these "slam poems" that I knew I'd be
competing with this evening
from names that make my nerves shiver and shake inside my spine.

Too many hours spent in front of the TV
watching taped poetry that still amazes me
even after ninety-two back-to-back viewings.

Too much time spent trying to spruce up
the corners of my verse with imitation fragances
sold at Wal-Mart to make you smell like Tiffany's.

I'll always know it's fake,
and I am tired of fake.

I don't have the righteous indignation necessary
to throw a stream of pissed off political bullshit.

I don't have enough powerful stories in my past
to win any points as a natural narrative narrator.

And I don't think a lot of alliteration will be enough,
but I still have these words that I want to be heard
so I'm going to try.

I'm going to try to look each and every person here in the eyes,
and share a part of my soul that I won't even ask for back
at the end of the night when last call runs around
and I'm not sure where I'm going to sleep tonight
but even the car is made a bit more comfortable by knowing
that maybe someone walked away thinking, "That man had something to say"
and that thought stays with them and gestates
and they think one morning in the shower where no one can here,
"If he can say it in such a plain and ordinary way,
maybe next time I can walk up on that stage."

You want to know what my regrets are?
I regret every second that I held in
every poem that I didn't think could win
a few lousy dollars that I would spend
before the night could even end
when I could've been up here
trying to let people in to see me.

And I'll be damned if that makes me a sucker.