A nominal amount of pain
when the lights go on.
You roll lines around in your head
and realize you remember none.
There’s only the dull stink of cigarette smoke
and day old donuts in your mouth.
Your mind seizes and your heart seethes.
What the **** am I doing here?
Nothing more than a back alley bard.
A barbarian without grace
with a penchant for writing inane ramblings
on cocktail napkins.

A bald man bellows in the back of the room.
An emo princess giggles at her date’s joke.
Drinks sloshed, cigars inhaled.
All awaiting the crash and burn,
or the entertainment they came to see.
They want a rock star.
They want a sideshow freak.
They will boo, they will howl,
They may even clap if the timings right.

Damon Malio goes up before me.
That ******* is as smooth as silk
and as suave as the day’s first rays.
Hell, I even want to run up there
and kiss the *******.
He has a rapacious tongue,
stealing every good word in the English language.
Banging away with syllables and gestures,
the room is vibing to his beat.

Knots in my stomach
and an ache in my brain.
A dull thump followed by
the whisper of “Fraud.”
                          “Failure.”
It’s that little boy voice
that used to get tormented in grade school.
The urge hits to wither away.

The only escape route is blocked by bouncers
at the back door.
I’m trapped here with the prison guards.
No semblance of thought,
just a rattle, panic and hate.
I’m a predator in a room full of rodents,
ready to eat me alive.

There are no outs,
only the get up there
and get out the vivid images
alive inside of me.
Right before I go up on stage
I touch the brick wall.
Tangible, tactile, rough and cool.
I laugh under my breath.
That’s the way people describe me.

If you ever wanted to hear a pin drop,
now would be a good time.
Staring back are a room full of strangers,
Murmuring, waiting for the show to begin.
I see a table full of beautiful women,
the tattooed, artsy types
I get weak in the knees for.
An older gentleman looking impatient for me to speak.
Clearly a professor of some sort.

I clear my throat.
Startling myself
at the loudness of it.
Loud…voice…speak…speak…speak.

“I’m a salty *******.
I could have been a Sabine
if I hadn’t been born in the wrong time,
to the wrong class of people
and a deformity looming larger than life.
That literary je ne sais quoi that working men
and the saviors of syphilis have.
The questionable knowledge that the
seafaring folk were instrumental
in my christening.

I’ll bring God’s ministry to Hades
and two tons of luck to riverboat gamblers
with fortuitous use of four aces.
I’ll bless the maître d’s war against the moguls
and the matadors quest for the upper hand
in the war of the forlorn.

I’m just kidding ladies and gentleman,
that’s all horseshit”

The crowd looks perplexed.
They aren’t quite there yet,
but we’re getting somewhere.

“We’re actually gathered here today to see the holy matrimony
of poetry and pestilence, art and arrogance.
I’ll be your priest, your prophet along the way.
We’ll channel them into
a seven year split and fifteen days of rage.
We’ll curse the gods of conformity and the spirits of suburban sprawl.
Set fire to the system that binds your mind.
The fallacies told to control you.

I never knew the error of my ways until
I touched God on Tuesday.
She was dead ringer for Greta Garbo,
gracious as a host and divine in her dealings with me.
I saw the white hot heat of Stockholm syndrome
and knew I was in the presence of the pantheon.
Felt swelter and fear,
but she kissed my forehead and whispered that it was all a lie.
The power others presume to hold over me.
The judges, the juries, the couponing maidens, the schoolmarms,
the cops and fathers and armies and vicious tax agents.
The Machiavellian telethon charities
and the undressed hookers pretending to be my saving grace.
The drugs, the music, the books, the *******, the fury of 40 years gone too long and not enough wisdom to die too soon.

I wept when she spoke to me.

Guns will **** you but love will **** you quicker she opined.
Obfuscated words from the otherworldly.
She sent me on a mission to find the words of Sinatra,
the Rat Pack’s subliminal subversion of all that power players hold dear.
The fear the unwashed masses will come.
The provincial mindset that they can procreate proletariats
to be the permanent protectors of their gilded ******* towers.
As I seethed she kissed and soothed me.
She whispered her love and asked me to lie with her.
I thought copulating with God was a heresy.
She told me to lay back and everything would be alright.”

I looked in the eyes of a tattooed temptress
and saw ravenousness for more words.
At least I knew I was getting laid tonight.

There was a new footing.
This vulnerability, baring my *** for all to see.
But there were no boos,
just the synergy of poetry conveyed through me.

“As we lay in the afterglow
I rolled over on one side and asked
how do I rid myself of the devils that plague us?
The bleeding, the burdens of humanity enslaving me?
She smiled playfully and ran her fingers through my hair,
telling me there there, don’t worry your pretty little head.
They can take from you. They can beat you.
They can **** you.
And oh my how they will try.
Governments and men with guns.
A society of rats crushing you with social mores,
moving to tell you what to do and how to live.
They will give speeches of how to behave on AM radio.
Buckle your belt, conserve the earth and be a good dad.
Foster those brats and bleat like sheep
to the tune of an Orwellian world.
I shook as she maddened my mind,
but her touch ran over me with ecstasy.

You will go forth my prophet, my prince,
and spread the word of free men with free minds,
not bound by internet ******* parties,
the latest legal trouble for B-listers
and all the trivialities of brainwashing.
The baubles betrothed to those without
imagination or the ***** to seek the truth.”