Step up to the podium.
Take a deep breath.
Close your eyes,
(maybe bow your head?)
Flip through your chapbook
or loose-leaf pages
marred with courier type-face
pulled from a new-retro-peechee.
Preface
Everything
with unnecessary
background.
Clear your throat,
and
Begin.
Tell yourself:
the audience seeks guidance
in your oration
they crave epiphanies
in each carefully culled word,
each
_ pain-stakingly
__________ placed
_______________ pause
and prudently planned
Em
FAHsis.
This collective
connects
in seemingly candid
consonance.
Leave them
with life altering
lessons
in alliteration.
Close with humor:
irony is poignant.
– Fin (End scene) –
Let them clap.
Act humbled.
Maybe you should blush.
(but not too much.)
Now peddle those books.
Inspire(!)
your admirers.
Tell them:
they too can write poetry as well as you
…Some day.
Smile.
No one will notice:
like pop lyrics without music,
like glam-rock without pyrotechnics,
your mute words
lay lifeless
on that pilfered
(office) paper.
Originally appeared in Doughnut Touch Me, Bank Heavy Press.
Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets 