when i recite my poems i don't shout or laugh i'm not asking your opinion seeking your approval or challenging your belief in god
i don't even have them memorized and don't want to i'm punching out words and feelings from a page like the grand marshall of a ticker tape parade
i'm so tired of poetry slams where dignity is stomped dry and teenaged lesbians try to change the collective consciousness of the older generation
there's nothing original in poetry anymore every black kid has a poem which starts with him holding a black and white photo and the lines on his great grandmother's face as she sweeps the yard with a broom made out of a bundle of twigs and no shoes on her feet and he's put it in a book or won some scholarship with it
while every feminist **** and post-pubescent *** have heart-wrenching tales set to the soundtrack of a john hughes flick of a time when they were mistaken for a man or forced to **** a fat man's **** in an alleyway somewhere in Cleveland or Boston someplace where the cold pavement left their knees bruised
what if i told you we've all ****** his **** and nearly all of us hated it we've all shoveled **** and your sob story doesn't make us cry
i still shake and crumple the paper no matter how many times i read on stage i still mumble and cough and spill my drink but maybe that's why i've never won a prize.