Open Mike, Week #3

My Poetic Muse sits in a little corner of my brain,

(looking a lot like Katherine Zetas Jones,

in that Zorro movie),

and she gives me bad advice.

That’s partly my own fault.

If you take your Muse out on Saturday night,

load her  up with Tanqueray and Wild Turkey,

and then pay any attention to what she tells you to do?

well then- you’re an idiot.

I want to make money with my words,

I told her. That’s easy, she said-

Write this down on a sheet of paper,

And you’ll make bagfuls of money:

“Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Fill this bag with 10s and 20s.

No dye packets”.

Ha, I said, good joke.

Easy to make fun at the expense 

of a tortured, starving artist, and, wait-

Should I capitalize “Dye Packets” ?

My Muse told me there’s a ton of money

to be made writing poetry.

Just look at the classifieds

in the back of Parade magazine-

Hallmark’s hiring.

Making money with poetry is easy.

All you have to do is come up with

57 words that rhyme with “Anniversary”.

News Flash to my Poetic Muse:

There is not a single word,

in the entire English language,

that rhymes with Anniversary.

Of all the ones I thought of,

the one that came closest? Penury.

But I tried anyway.

Happy Anniversary,

Happy Anniversary?

Happy Anniversary,

Haaappy Anniversary!!

Fuck it.

Rhyme is over-rated.

Finally, after consuming 5 pots of coffee,

and the entire contents of that little plastic baggie

I found in the back corner 

of my roommate’s sock drawer (in 1997),

I lost consciousness at my desk,

and dreamed that giant pink Easter bunnies,

(Rhyming, carnivorous pink Easter bunnies)

were chasing me around the Eifel Tower.

I woke up to find that I’d used my keyboard 

to batter my monitor senseless.

Thanks, ironic Poetic Muse

(who looks startlingly like Katherine Zeta Jones).

Thanks.

Look, I told her, I want to write poems 

that make a difference in people’s lives.

Failing that, I want to write poems that

at least make me happy. Failing that- 

Wait, she said.  Tell me the truth!

OK, I admitted- here’s the truth-

I am going to write a poem that gets made 

into the world’s first poetry-based

Hollywood blockbuster action thriller!

Leaves of Grass? Meet Die Hard Eight.

-He’s back, and he RHYMES!

It will be directed by Arnold Schwartzenager,

and star Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, and-

 dare I hope?

Katherine Zeta Jones!