Traffic School

Posted on October 29, 2004 in Poems

It was a lousy night at Barnes and Noble. Coffee grinders churned and people walked about as I read. As I declaimed a poem, someone hit the window behind me. In the middle of the area where we were reading were several tables for merchandise. It was hard to hear any poet. When I mentioned how bad the environment was, a saboteur said “That’s only one opinion”. There doesn’t seem to be anyplace else where they can hold the reading.

In the middle of the reading, when I was sick and tired of all the noise and the banality of the woman next to me who — when people read the same insipid poems they read every month — chorused “Great! That was good!” as if this was a school play, I wrote a poem. I wrote this poem for all the other poets who have had to perform in bad environments, before lame audiences who call them names such as arrogant, sensitive, and proud. I wrote the poem because I am tired and right now, I don’t give a fuck what the poetasters who can’t escape a cliche think. I am tired of those who quit trying to be something other than the herd. I quit on those who don’t get that to be a half-rate poet you need to be an outsider, not a nodding doll who recites the same old platitudes and the same old poems.

The poets among you will appreciate the sentiments here. It’s for you that I wrote this and to stick it just once in the craw of those who have no clue how bad they are. If I had half the pride one poetaster suggested that I had tonight, I would have walked out of the reading at the beginning. I need more pride, real pride — self respect.

The man in the class
was like the audience
at a poetry reading:
he wasn’t getting it.
Great, great, he whispered
as the instructor related
how to defend yourself
against your own bad habits.

Old Geezer out of the canyons
raised his hand
“I want to speed
faster than the wind.
Tell me how to do it.”

Teacher frowned
as he flashed yellow,
clocking the man on his radar.
You could hear the ticks
as he summed up nothing
in twenty or so words.

He passed him
even when Geezer didn’t get it.
Just like I pass
audiences
on the way out the door.
Let them go home.
They showed for the hearing.
I let that be enough.