poem of the day 01.27.09

headliners

one of them was
this hippy woman
who read poems in verse
and kept mentioning allen ginsberg
after every second breath
and she made
the characters in her poems
speak in these
obnoxious voices
trying to be funny
but no one laughed
one guy downed a glass of wine
and tried to leave but
his woman stopped him
and the other headliner
was this old folky
from back when the village
wasn’t all boutiques
and bars with $20 martinis
he was a man who needed a mic
for his guitar too
because he was authentic
and in love with the other headliner
and he probably shared a bathroom
with dylan once in the early 60s
well, he played these bad
folk songs about commies
and the government
and he kept shouting about
barack obama
and he worked his best to get
the audience into it
which they weren’t
so everyone kept drinking until
they were done
and i was the guy who stole
the employees please wash your hands sign
from the bathroom
because i needed something to do
something to believe in
i needed art
but no one was making it
that night.