Spoken Word Revolutionary

This freestyling spoken word buffoon
says I'm making mockery of poetry--
he is a word revolutionary, you see,
and I don't see the great movement
that his message is trying to convey--
he is out to liberate, to infiltrate,
while I'm just this Russian who tells
him that he just masturbates and
his bullshit message is not about art,
not about being real, it's about word abuse,
Pete said he used to write for Village Voice
but quit when they were going to send him
as a reporter to Iraq, now he writes all this
phony crap about society, injustice and oppression--
look at me, I'm real, I'm humanity--
and I'm really sick of it all,
so I read my "The World Is Full of Bastards" poem,
and they all started laughing, except this guy
who got really uncomfortable--
says I'm not being serious--
but I don't want to be serious,
I just want to play around,
and these people are all so uptight,
they wouldn't even get a microphone
because it's against the city ordinance--
revolutionaries, my ass,
they can't even say "fuck" in a poem--
Allen Ginsberg would laugh at all these
spoken word clowns--
liberation is masturbation,
why not? You people, are all so fucking
uptight with your politically correct bullshit,
that you call "freestyling"--what the fuck are
you talking about?
Pete wants me to read again, but I might just
blow it off--he says I have to read something
really serious, nothing raunchy, something
lyrical and profound, or this spoken word buffoon
will call it quits and they will no longer
invite me to read--
I feel so stifled there, but then I remember
those kids laughing when I read--
this whole world is fucking uptight--
I remember this Jordanian guy Tony Samander--
very religious guy he was, used to write novels
about holy cities and prophets,
freaked out once when he saw
one of Bob's books on the floor--books are holy,
you see, you should never disrespect your books
or your parents, he went to my poetry reading
once, freaked out, saying that I've made a mockery
of poets and poetry, kept saying "squeeze my balls"
the whole night, I guess the words got stuck in his head
from one of my poems....
I read about him in the paper several years later,
Tony had an argument with his father during
Thanksgiving dinner, pulled a knife and stabbed
his father in the stomach, then the police came
and shot him dead.
 

                                                                July 3, 2003
                                                             --Alexander Shaumyan