How do I review myself without being subjective, objective or egotistical. Or does that even matter? Poets either idealize or objectify in one way or the other, and sometimes we are capable of a certain cynical detachment that passes for brave honesty.
field of cold dreams
This was my first (& possibly last) time at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club. It is big room – more upscale & corporate than the name implies. Plush banquettes, ornate stained-glass, imposing bar – it has more of a night club feel than I’m used to, say, from the Central or Paupers. Lots of good sight line, good kitchen (loved the Italian sausage & spaghetti.) Good acoustics, too.
the cupboard is bare
The show started with a range of open-stagers. Lizzie Violet herself kicking things off with poems to resurrect spring; Supertash, with a copy of the SCUM manifesto (I want it) reminding us that everyone is fucked (up); Same Difference: noted slam man, ‘listened to the weather/ not on the radio/ but to the sound of it on his body’; Myke Mazzei did a couple of sweet songs (he also recorded my set); Cate McKim offered note from her notebook: ‘the human race is unsafe at any speed’ & a fine Noel Coward song; Jeff Cottrill did some fun comic monologues; ending with the Crow with some sharp urban street poems.
I hit the stage after a short break. I started with Godzilla – a piece that gets my energy up quick &, I hope, pulls the audience in faster, too. I did a mix of pieces from my last two sets plus some very new things. More romantic than usual but also as out as I am usually without getting too ‘balls in your face’ about it. Ended with two of the more high energy pieces Identity & Born to be Blown.
yet another couch ruined
There was good response to all the pieces, some snaps here & there, laughs where expected. Thank God for the Kindle to keep things moving forward, though I did skip one piece. Nice bit of $ tossed in the pwyc bin. Even sold a couple of chap books. So I actually have a profit (of about $5.) to show once I deduct transportation, meal & paying my sound guy.
One of the new pieces from my set
Couch
he wanted to try
fucking
sprawled over the back of a couch
something he’d seen
in a porn movie
when it wasn’t as hot
or as easy as it looked
I had to tell him
porn movies aren’t instructional videos
he looked a bit miffed
as if it was our fault
that neither of us could duplicate
the endurance flexibility
of those performers
I told him
they don’t do single take session
just like real movies
they stop for snacks
to have their testicular make up adjusted
which is even more important
now with everything in HD
I showed him one sequence
where the stunt dick steps in
to fuck the stunt ass hole
that the two actors
he had been so intense upon
had been replaced
for those all important close ups
unless between camera set ups
one of them grew a foreskin
and the other had his ass shaved
he wasn’t assuaged
by these revelations
and once again
porn has ruined my sex life
and my couch
the couch couldn’t take it
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TOpoet 