Coffee Shop Read Through
Those are the best of times
and the worst of times as well.
Down in the coffee shops in the evening sunsets
as the people holding hands come down
to drink coffee,
smoke cigarettes
and listen to some good poetry.
They don't listen,
just have fun,
as one after another, poets
come up and smile with poem after poem,
word after word,
till silences hits the air
and snaps of finger break silent air.
The girls with black hair,
smile and dance with beer,
the guys they came with, hit on other women,
coming with one girl,
leaving with another.
Those are good times for me,
when I get up on stage,
and open up a ragged used notebook,
and read as my own words flow though the crowd
of anticipation and romance,
it kills them to see me with no one.
But that is what keeps me writing,
and coming to these places to keep them entertained.
They feed me,
and I feed them,
I collect my pay,
walk on home or drive,
and I sit at my desk, with the radio turned low;
writing away twenty or thirty or forty new poems,
that inspired me.
Coffee shop read through,
where poets come to die,
and people come to watch and inspire.
|