[work in progress]
The Brighton was its usual mix of lords and hoi polloi. Gregory Schwartz and George Holler were lifting their shirts and making their bellies talk to one another--full of laughter and verbiage. Mr. Schwartz had, just weeks earlier, won the annual "Poet Laureate of Asbury Park" award. An award which I was the inaugural recipient of.
Jacko Monahan was levitating the pool table away on an "Easy Lift" roller-dolly so that the crowd could dance freely in response to the a-capella poetry presented--much as the ancient Greeks had done. Tabors and wild sibilants might ensue this evening, one surmised. Lady B glided in as lightly as a dancer taking the stage, all grace and lift, only her darkly flashing eyes weighted with ironic understandings.
Dan Weeks appeared with his treasure haul of printed sheets. We would hear of poets engaged in the anger and shell fragments of "The Great War." When Dan saw that George Holler was present, he pulled out another poem and told George: "I'm going to read this since you're here, George. You always liked it." This was the poem about riding the NJ Coastline train which calls the narrator a "freakish assemblage," to which George had replied: "That's me!"
The evening was filled with poets and poems. Having arrived quite early, I went on quite early, third after George Holler and Dan Weeks. After me was Gregory Schwartz. George and Greg had done a "kung-fu poetry" routine as I tried to read my piece for the evening. I played along, and segued it into what I was presenting. Everyone laughed to see such a sight. After we were all done, jazzed from reading, and having no further obligations, we drank and chattered about the poets before us and our own poems. I had just completed the first draft of a long-dreamed young adult novel, "The Singing Well." Dan was almost done with his semester's teaching and a long Coleridge paper for a doctoral class he was taking. We had much to discuss.
Another early reader came from the Coffee Blue crowd, and I didn't recognize him at first, but when he began to read I remembered the poem well enough--a full-on performance about being "Generation X." Jessie Smith read a moving poem about her father's recent death, and the weirdnesses that surrounded that. One of the poets from "The Idiom," or the "Walking English" crew (I'm not sure which) gave a spirited reading, sitting on the edge of the stage and using his voice to what I thought was particularly good effect. Dan Weeks said that he had read a number of the poems from "The Idiom" online before the show. Dan just had two old X-Poems published in the latest edition of "The Idiom."
[Longer list of poems, find copy of Idiom, include pieces read, and comments]
Usually, I spend a good deal of time and attention making audience remarks about the poems on stage. This evening I refrained. I was, it turned out later, starting to come down with the flu, which kept me down and out for the next five days. Gregory Schwartz was buying my beers because I had re-gifted an iMac that Alice B. Talkless, with great generosity and thoughtfulness, had given to me. He had no way to write and print, or edit his sonic creations. Mostly, I was opting for Sam Adams'.
At the end of the evening, with Jacko onstage out-gunning the audience with his word-Uzi, we all stood about and commented, as we usually did, that Jacko should put out a printed book because his poems move with such verbal swiftness and range of reference, even if the point of a specific poem may be as simple as a pin.
At the far end of the bar, a tall blond poet with fancy pants and a cool jersey of some kind (which I had noticed, to myself, as a fashion statement earlier in the evening), was talking loudly to his friends, saying "Yeah, but those jackasses never shut up...." There was a knot of chuckling that accompanied this witticism, and guilty glances from their end of the bar toward our end. I think I was the only one at our end who picked up on the remark, which was meant to be overheard, like a playground dare.
"I only hear one jackass braying," I said, directly to the tall blond.
He was evidently glad to have my attention, for he began to divulge a list of complaints. "You never shut up. You don't listen to anybody else. You're always talking. I can hear your voice all the time."
I took his remarks as honest complaints--some of which I had heard before. "I know my voice carries; it has a certain timbre that is hard to miss. But, I do listen to the poets, mostly. A lot of the time, what I'm talking about are the poems being read on stage."
"That's bullshit. You just think you're hot shit. You don't listen to anybody. I'm gonna break your face."
It was at this point that I noticed that the tall blond was drunk and belligerent. The time had come for silence, or a game of wit-darts, with his ballooning ego as the easy target. I was spared having to make a decision by nearby friend's intercession.
"You mean," the friend began, "that you're going to beat me up because I didn't listen to your poem?"
The tall blond was unfazed. "Not you," he said, pointing at my friend, and then moving his finger over slowly as he continued, "him." His finger now pointed me out clearly, and he and his friends advanced. This did make me grin.
My friend told me later that he didn't feel at all relieved by not being pointed at, since he'd have to pitch in to defend me.
The tall blond leaned in to say "I'm gonna break your face." Two of his friends seemed to be holding him back (at least somewhat). "But you're too old."
"Way to respect your elders, junior."
A little poet ducked in between the tall blond and myself, gesturing madly. He was the one who had sat on the edge of the stage and had a good reading voice. I told him this while he was busily saying a bunch of silly things like "It's OK. You guys said what you had to say, and it's all cool. He's just going to go, and nobody needs to fight...." Personally, I was far more likely to swing on a star than to take a swing at anyone. The little poet's face changed considerably as I reviewed his stage performance to his face. He saw that I had indeed been paying attention, at least a good deal of the time.
Soon, they all left.
Fellow poets to my left and to my right, began discussing instantly how they would have taken the blond poet down. This shocked me more than the exchange of insults and threats of violence. They were perfectly serious, and had picked out portions of the blond poet's anatomy to rearrange. I was still blithely sipping my Sams.
My friend had a word with Jacko about being threatened at a poetry show of all things. Jacko said "I've heard fifty poets threaten Gregg. Don't turn it into an us against them thing."
Jacko turned to me, "I don't have your back on this one."
Jacko recalled the time I and another friend had spritzed a fellow poet, Timmo, with our beers while he was on stage some twelve or more years ago. He didn't recall that Timmo had just been interrupting and heckling me during my entire set, which I had countered good naturedly. Anyway, ancient history.
...[more in here]...
When next we meet on the field of honor, I will pay to enter the sanctum of the stage, crossing Jacko's palm with silver. Also, I will have a giant flower-spear beside me, and an aluminum garbage can lid emblazoned with my family coat of arms. A dictionary, a thorn labeled "Ignorance" dripping blood, and a mouse rampant on a field of green.
The lion, his great blond mane a-shake Roars his poem like a subway train Filling the stadium with his boisonberry breath. His words fill the sky like throwing stars His gait is proud as a new papa's Birthing his bowl of roses. Then came the mouse that roared Creeping along the wainscoting board With a speech of crumbs, words of crumbled cheese. The lion's ire was great at this, His jungle was too small for two. This was a poetry rumble. At seven paces they turned and paused. Would wit or weight the contest win? The lion and his seven friends stood firm. The grey mouse twitched and began to squirm. This was a poetry rumble, Swords of rose thorns met bouquets of wild thyme. Vinegarettes of wit hit salads of opprobrium, Raining a tasty nastiness over the crowd. Here was a feast for anger and its irks. The lion in his paw held a golden bowl of gall. The mouse twisted whiskers dipped in a poison pen. Who would win, who would win? They battled on forever more, roar and wriggle, Wrestler's weight vs. valiant littleness! They fought so long the shadows were their only friends, Disguising the disfigurement of congealing wounds, The hardening skin that could feel no flitting violet, The nose that knew only the scent of blood. Eons on, the lion pounced, his mane a tumbleweed. Mouse was busy making paper planes of insults. Mouse was pinned as lion began to eat his ears, Chewing each word the dictionary had left there, A tattoo inking the pink. Then mouse spied a thorn In the lion's paw, and pulled it with a wince. The lion leapt like a flower-fountain, Forgetting his anger and his ire. The mouse shook laughing like a peppermint bush. "Ignorance" on the discarded thorn was writ. Remove the thorn, remove the roar. This was a poetry rumble. Gregg Glory
12/20/2006