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This freestyling spoken word buffoon

says I'm making mockery of poetry--

he is a word revolutionary, you see,

and I don't see the great movement

that his message is trying to convey--

he is out to liberate, to infiltrate,

while I'm just this Russian who tells

him that he just masturbates and

his bullshit message is not about art,

not about being real, it's about word abuse,

Pete said he used to write for Village Voice

but quit when they were going to send him

as a reporter to Iraq, now he writes all this

phony crap about society, injustice and oppression--

look at me, I'm real, I'm humanity--

and I'm really sick of it all,

so I read my "The World Is Full of Bastards" poem,

and they all started laughing, except this guy

who got really uncomfortable--

says I'm not being serious--

but I don't want to be serious,

I just want to play around,

and these people are all so uptight,

they wouldn't even get a microphone

because it's against the city ordinance--

revolutionaries, my ass,

they can't even say "fuck" in a poem--

Allen Ginsberg would laugh at all these

spoken word clowns--

liberation is masturbation,

why not? You people, are all so fucking

uptight with your politically correct bullshit,

that you call "freestyling"--what the fuck are

you talking about?

Pete wants me to read again, but I might just

blow it off--he says I have to read something

really serious, nothing raunchy, something

lyrical and profound, or this spoken word buffoon

will call it quits and they will no longer

invite me to read--

I feel so stifled there, but then I remember

those kids laughing when I read--

this whole world is fucking uptight--

I remember this Jordanian guy Tony Samander--

very religious guy he was, used to write novels

about holy cities and prophets,

freaked out once when he saw

one of Bob's books on the floor--books are holy,

you see, you should never disrespect your books

or your parents, he went to my poetry reading

once, freaked out, saying that I've made a mockery

of poets and poetry, kept saying "squeeze my balls"

the whole night, I guess the words got stuck in his head

from one of my poems....

I read about him in the paper several years later,

Tony had an argument with his father during

Thanksgiving dinner, pulled a knife and stabbed

his father in the stomach, then the police came

and shot him dead.

  



                                                                                     July 3, 2003