I Like to Fuck
Risk wasn’t optional
Too much at stake!
Fierce competition unrelenting
My melodic over-melodramatic slam team kin
Had grave concerns about my ability
to milk judges’ intuitive teats for creamy score
Especially how I do it
For handicapped me, Prince of Stumps with hand to paper
They brought in the toughest slam coach in the business
Strapping, Hannibal: Personal Poetry Trainer
“What are you spitting?” paced Hannibal
Looking me up and gawking me down
“You’re entering a poetry minefield out there!
Poetical bombs will explode around you!
Without killer material and proper mental stamina (or PMS)
You’re gonna’ DIE before you finish the first stanza!”
I suggested papers and shuffled my opening favorite titled
“I Like to Fuck”
Throwing his clipboard against the wall
Hannibal wolf-wailed
“Here’s the DEAL, Sister Dooley
Lay off the vino—you’re in training!
Flush the butts
Do you know what a goddam diaphragm is?
I admitted, yes
Once, Ex-Wife crammed hers in my mouth on the way home from a bar
Because I refused to screw and drive drunken car simultaneously
“NOT THAT DIAPHRAM YOU PROSEY PIECE OF POO!
HERE! (thump chest) WHERE THE POETRY COMES FROM!”
I thought poetry came from drinking wine and smoking cigarettes
Chewing on vile rubbery memory of Ex-Diaphram?
“NO! NO! NO!”
“And you’re not going into high-octane competition with a poem about
How you like to fuck!
Everybody likes to fuck!
Everybody shits and eats
And everybody came from some fucked up abusive family!
Everybody hates hangnails, starvation, senseless wars and baby death too
NOBODY wants to hear about it downtown having a good poetry time!”
But I’ve got a new take on it
I don’t just thesaurusize a list of obvious advantages!
“Great Jumping Taylor Mali on a purple pogo stick!
Remove your ass-hat and get with the program!
There are POINTS to be had here
Prize money to win
Don’t dare diminish my resume!”
How about this one, offers I
Called, “Slam Poet I Can See Your Hiney When You Wiggle Your Fingers and Prancy-Pants Around Like Hip Hop Speed Readers and Rhyme ‘New’ With ‘Gnu’ and Pronounce It That Way Because You’re a Douche”
It’s about choosing not to write about poets, who write about not writing about other poets, then satirizes their false inflections and Bugs Bunny dance moves designed to simulate vertical copulation
Frowning down, Hannibal tapped his foot impatiently
“Memorize it!
Wave your arms a lot
Thrust out your pelvis and GYRATE
Shed a tear! Yell at the top of your lungs, speak in tongues,
Until your pitiful uvula flaps out your teeth like a pink-skinned salamander!
I want all the mock integrity you can muster mister!”
“This isn’t just for your EGO
It’s for this TOWN
It’s for the TEAM
It’s for my 10%”
Hannibal softened then, began to rub my shoulders
“We’re going to walk in there like ROYALTY
You are a poetry GOD”
Then he took out my penis
Held it in his hands and kissed it fondly, whispering gently
“By the way, there’s a group piece I’d like you to work on with your team mates
Where you skip like an elf, sing falsetto, and patty-cake each others’ tits.”
“Can you Choo-Choo for me?”