Letting Go of the Kitty, Getting Up After Getting Bucked by a Big Ol’ Bull

DATELINE: SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
The Pharmacy Spoken Word Night, September 22, 2011
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I was looking forward as much to hangin’ with the gang after as I was the night leading up to it. That said, I also know that since I want to be a poet, and I am able on a good night to share with listeners what I’ve written as it should be spoken, and I want to be recognized as a pretty good poet, the logical thing to do is to go out and BE.
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It wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. I had been wanting to spend more time with my aviation museum. One night a week is about all I can bear to be away in a week, and Thursday night would be the second night this week, following a fine Poetry and Prose at Robbie’s Night, a third Wednesday tradition, followed by a new routine of 4th Thursdays at The Pharmacy artists; co-op at Pasfield at South Grand . . . a oneTWO-punch from a coincidence on the calendar. But I wasn’t going to say “no,” for the same reason a fellow in his right mind doesn’t say “no” to a new girlfriend when she’s hinting around for a little affection. There will be time enough to say “no” in a few years, maybe, after your first kid, and you can swallow a little neglect now and then, confident you’re sharing the same footpath to forever together. So, I wasn’t going to say “no” to poetry Thursday night. For two nights a month, I’d be an idiot to walk away from what on a good night would be regarded as a cherished and appreciated opportunity.
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I thought I was riding a saddle-broke pony around the trail from the paddock and back. About three or four poets in, what I expected would be what has been traditional in my circle of bards has been five to ten minutes at a time behind the microphone was turning into 10 to 15 minutes at a time. Not three or four poems but six or eight from each participant. My pony was growing horns and getting fat. By the time I was introduced, I felt I had been in the saddle not for a romp in the park, but a slog through a swamp to Tombstone, Arizona and back. I had heard a Vachel Lindsay poem read sincerely but with more departures from the printed word than I had previously believed humanly possible when the words are on pieces of paper, and the papers are in front of your eyes. 
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as in like . . . ”Mary had a pickle lamb. Its fleece was wild as snope.”
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I was beginning to resent this lethargic languidly lurching beast I had mounted.
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When I was well introduced by the charming Jennifer and well-received by the audience as I rose to the nicely lit “stage” I felt wrecklessly loose with my life; in poetic terms, damn near suicidal re whatever I was going to share. The longer the presenters took, the more time I had to plan my presentation, though I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed what I heard from most: Joshua, reading for the first time, A.D., absolutely galvanizing, provocative, penetrating, Michael Dustin, Travis, most of the Springfield Poets and Writers group that had shared at Robbie’s the night before. Everyone who KNEW how to use a microphone, used it well. Others. . . . well suffice to say that it could have been a floor lamp and helped as much or more with amplifying words shared across a table in a library. I hasten to add, my ears seem to be going south on me. I probably don’t hear as well as I used to. I SAID I PROBABLY DON’T HEAR AS WELL AS I USED TO HEAR
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As I said, darn near poetry-selection-suicidal about what I was going to say. It would have been worse if I had not met and chatted with Meagan, a creative writing instructor at University of Illinois Springfield during the intermission. By that time, I had decided I’d open with my “Send In the Cows,” recite”Invitation” a poem written at college in the fall of 68, hadn’t tried to memorize or even read aloud from a page in 20 years, I changed my mind about the Vachel poem and decided to recite his “The Kallyope Yell” which I had recited at a downtown event a few Saturdays before and hadn’t glanced at since. Silly me, partly confidence and part “que sera sera.” I also knew I would read my two newest poems, written this week: “Comb In the Airport Parking Lot” which I read for the first time at Robbie’s the night before, and “The Open Gallery Stream of Consciousness I Sailed Until I Saw Lenore,” which I had written September 14 when I visited The Pharmacy with my pen and notebook, based on an event that happened as I was writing it. I published it here at Honey & Quinine a few posts ago. Everything but Kallyope Yell went okay. I surprised myself with “Invitation:” couldn’t imagine I’d get through it with just a few stumbles.
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Once, a few residences ago, I shared the house with a kitty; I mean a real kitty; I’m not child-proofing a euphemism for an adult cat, though I’ve shared the house with a few of those as well. One day I affectionately and playfully picked up the kitty and it panicked, probably surprised, and began scratching my hand and arm as though it intended to sever my arm just below the elbow. Can you imagine MY surprise?
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If you can, you can understand my surprise when in silent thought on a different wave length as I was nearing the end of Kallyope, drew a blank on transition to the final section. I knew the end, but I could not visualize, coud not remember how to GET to the concluding 10 lines! At at the pace the words were coming out my mouth, consider for a nano-second saying something transitional in the form of an alibi, that I had drawn a blank and THEN saying the last 10  lines. Then I decided that would be too “Miss America tryout” of me. As when there was no point in talking to my kitty that fateful day, and there was no point in blubbering away at The Pharmacy. I simply had to let that sucker GO! And I did. Eight or nine words of laughing alibi to the audience that applauded more than my botched words were worth, I resumed my nacharul poise and finished my protracted set. Any other place where I wasn’t a featured presenter, I’d have cut “Invitation” and “Comb” but I was a peeved hummin’ bean and gave them as much extended me as the others had given of their protracted, and many well-crafted for the page, mostly-outbursts.
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And by the time I was stable in my chair with the audience — which had been TERRIFIC, by the way — I was hot and tired and hungry and I needed a drink, something no 30-year-old should ever admit. But I’m no 30-year-old-maybe-you-noticed. I sweated through the last of it, appreciated Travis Taylor’s angry vocal hurl of handwritten catharsis and after milling a record short three minutes in the aftermath, surreptitiously — but not very surreptitiously, I’m sure — lightened the refreshments by four pieces of nut bread and a sweet and gooey roll sandwiched between a few napkins and exited out the rear side door and walked home a block and a half. Beautiful and cool outside.
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Five minute later, I smothered bread and roll with Imperial Margarine and watched the rest of Charlie Rose quaffing Carlo Rossi Burgundy as though I had a four-gallon case of it in the kitchen (I don’t dang it) , and ended the evening in bed, asleep before midnight. On the way to bed I somehow posted on Facebook saying I felt I had been bucked off a big ol’ bull, but I was okay, and I didn’t blame the bull. Also said “IF I return next month.” There is no doubt; I WILL return gladly and with great expectations.
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Thanks to The Pharmacy, Andrew Woolbright, Jennifer Snopko, sound and light system provider/engineer/jazz man extraordinaire Frank Trompeter and the presenters and the audience for a most memorable evening.
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Live long . . . . . . and proper