Poetry is a Contact Sport

Poetry is a contact sport.
Words slide off the page and crash in flames to the ground.
Hearts pound with the thrill of victory,
and break with the agony of defeat,
and the crowd goes wild.

Pity the poor poets their insecurities-
No multi-year contracts or signing bonuses here.
In the Poetry League
its write and recite, or die.
Connect- or sit down, alone,
at the sad end of the bar.

All-Star poets will tell you
They’re just glad to be here,
Just trying to give their all, help the team out,
Playing it one poem at a time.
Working every night to find
yet another meaningful way
to be thoughtful, thought-provoking,
intense, insightful, inspired,
and ever-so-slightly ambiguous.

Journeyman poets roam the League,
Slamming for anyone who will buy them a beer,
Waking up in a strange bed each morning,
checking the web each night
to make sure they haven’t been traded to Shreveport.
The Poetry Scene in Shreveport is a little odd.
Nobody wants to get traded to Shreveport.

Young rookie poets
strut their poetic chops everywhere,
to anyone who stands still long enough to listen.
Absolutely anyone-
“Well thank you, that sure is a nice poem”,
the stranger replies, slightly bewildered,
“But really, did you want fries with that?”


Old poets never die,
they just rest on their rhymes,
sip their beers,
and twitch uncomfortably,
when fresh-faced Young Turk poets
rapidly recite all hundred forty-seven synonyms
for the physical act of making hot poet love
  which they have painstakingly memorized
  and can recall in absolute alphabetical order
  without ever stopping to take a breath-
    Pause, exhale,
and then do it all over again.
In Klingon.

But times, they are a changin’-
Drug tests are coming-
tests for drugs, alcohol, too much caffeine.
Test clean once -30 day suspension.
Test clean three times-
your Poetic License is revoked.

Hey, Poetry is a contact sport.
Words slide off the page and crash in flames to the ground.
Hearts pound with the thrill of victory,
and break with the agony of defeat,
and the crowd goes wild.