Reading

One preponderant moment.
He swaggers out to the
entrance with swash-buckling
timidity,
rambling,
provocative.
The seekers of modest glimpses
of his
particular eyes and nose
prepare to engage themselves
in the legal journey of his
exposed character.
Complimentary applause fills
the lecture hall.
It is
(Ah! That he has arrived with
his Three Rivers Journal and
papers)--
a poet who has formerly taken
up residency somewhere else
to prove that poets are real.
He, who is willing to submit to
flushing himself out in public
again
with an audacious wailing cry
of relief.

I am sitting in the far rear
left wing
viewing only a profile with my
lipstick smeared off my lips
from the excitement of being a
portrait of a debutante
who is about to get an autograph.

There is no sense in seeking hidden
meaning behind shallow mirth
and sophisticated public grunts
that occur on any certain glamourous
or amusing pause,
after a well-read line.
Rather,
I chose to imagine the size of
his jockey shorts and
if he slept well while riding
into the city.
He might easily plunge into a
memorable passage of his
whirlwind Disneyland account of
the sexual act. What remains to be
seen is, simply, whether or not
he has mastered verbal velocity.

There is no need to capture his
grand audience.
They have already died on the
battlefield of a
torn-off book jacket on a second-
edition book bought in a book shop
near the Nixon Theatre
that has long since folded.
The openness of his educated palms
has captivated me,
admittedly.
There is nothing left to do but
lean foward with
acute attention
while scanning the dark forum
with the foolish and the wise
temporarily prey to the powers
of an active grand-slam pen.
He had just read a poem called
High Point.

He signs his name
(inside the glossy jacket of
A Month Of Sundays)
that nicely takes care of his
fame
with the same methodic flair
as his prosey glamour.
None dare cross the guarded borderline
to give him more than
nervous gratitude
for something they have
doted quietly over
while walking out into a crowd.

I respond in a cafe
his memory afloat
with
How well he looked as he
stood behind the lecturn while
speaking legibly!"

This poem won honorable mention in
the Eclectic Poet's November Contest, 2002