176.5: This is a buzz unlike/caffeine...

This is a buzz unlike

caffeine

unlike

too much nicotine:

but it is an addiction

This spoken word buzz is like

a dragon speaking (poetry)

into a microphone,

and out of the amplifier comes

          F I R E!

not the fire that burns to consume

but the fire that lights and

the soul keeps it lit

illuminated

pushing back the collective darkness

and here I am hooked

Hooked!

I need it like some people need half a pack a day

or two cups of coffee to get out the door

I need an IV of poetry

to keep me awake

to keep me orientated to who, when, where, what

just happened

just shout at me like a tempest

whisper to me like a blade of grass

speak to me directly

           like an express bus

speak to me effusively

           like a Hollywood action explosion

speak to me indirectly

           like a prophesy

but speak to me!

           because I need it

           I need it like it’s going to save my life tonight

           without it I’m just an other man down

           tired of being a poet

           with all of my sins and wreckage catching up to me

With it I am Resurrected like Lazarus

and living that resurrection

every time you speak a syllable of it

so let it pour forth from you

                     over me

          and into my IV

cause I’m telling you

if I don’t get a fix
there’s no telling what’s going to break

or what I will break

or what I will steal

because every time you hear a phrase you’re left

panicked because you never want it to end

and you keep wanting more

it echos inside your skull

          to your heart

                    to your sex

and it keeps you going

but you never get the

release

and you find yourself right handing it

and left handing it

and saying

and saying

the poetry you need most

and then you’re in the same jam

hung over, strung out, needing

just one puff, just one sip

of the poetry that you know

will at least help you to get through the night

so you can put down that pen

and go to sleep and stop the

searching/scratching

the inking black lines

you hope will compose some

poetic treasure map to show

you how to get to the infinite stash

          the infinite stash

so you’ll always have a good hit

          a good hit of some poetry

some words that will fix you up real good

          and everything will be okay

                    and all the gravity will leave you

                              so you can go away flying in words

instead of writing, chasing away all the white

filling page after page with words

that always fall short

are never enough

          never enough

                     never enough

and this is when you know you’re an addict

when you get to this

never enough

never enough

this never enough riding out even past the dawn

and you’ve been up for 72 hours writing and

you still have this never enough and you’re still

trying to find the phrase or line that will

           finish it

                     finish it so you can at last

wash the ink off your fingers and go to sleep

           just get some sleep

but these pens now, they can write a line to

encircle the solar system before they run out of ink,

or maybe your journal only has 200 pages,

and you think you might be able to hang on to

the pen until then if it could just take you there,

and then you could stop and let go,

           but then there are the bed sheets

          and the wall, and suddenly white is everywhere

                    everywhere

and you keep on trying to fill it

because it is what you have to do

when you’ve become hooked to this

hardest, most elusive drug of all

           emptying you

                    filling you

and handing you the mean reds

on engraved platter from Tiffany’s

every time you try to put down the god damn

          pen

and I’m hooked

          HOOKED!

but I need it to help me put down the god damn pen.



©2010 by Jonathan Neske

All rights reserved.

www.neske.biz