Poetry Readings

poetry readings have to be some of the saddestdamned things ever,the gathering of the clansmen and clanladies,week after week, month after month, yearafter year,getting old together,reading on to tiny gatherings,still hoping their genius will bediscovered,making tapes together, discs together,sweating for applausethey read basically to and foreach other,they can't find a New York publisheror onewithin miles,but they read on and onin the poetry holes of America,never daunted,never considering the possibility thattheir talent might bethin, almost invisible,they read on and onbefore their mothers, their sisters, their husbands,their wives, their friends, the other poetsand the handful of idiots who have wanderedinfrom nowhere.

I am ashamed for them,

I am ashamed that they have to bolster each other,

I am ashamed for their lisping egos,their lack of these are our creators,please, please give me something else:a drunken plumber at a bowling alley,a prelim boy in a four rounder,a jock guiding his horse through along therail,a bartender on last call,a waitress pouring me a coffee,a drunk sleeping in a deserted doorway,a dog munching a dry bone,an elephant's fart in a circus tent,a 6 p.m. freeway crush,the mailman telling a dirty jokeanythinganythingbutthese.

These days,  poets in the groups don't wait -- they self publish.