right now
a slam poet
is committing to memory
a new poem
that makes their lips and
tongue do a dance determined
to make sibilance sexy
(it’s not!)

and then hoping to evoke
the feel of their feet
merging with the earth
and feeling so goddamn
at one with it all eh.

basically fingering the
universe, getting tingled-up
by their own next verse
which hurts so much to
anyone else to hear it
curse and then groan and
moan and rhyme all the
time –

the words will pile up
and topple over faster and
then quicker and if the rhymes
get slicker, they’ll breathe
even deeper in an effort to
just shrug it all off…

and none of this makes
any real sense when divorced
from the purely emotional
level

and it doesn’t at all
make me sad that I sold
all of my Ani DiFranco records
many, many years ago.