the spoken word poet
whatever happened
to the spoken world poet?
i don’t mean all of them
but that one back in pittsburgh
he had such an exotic name
i can’t even remember it
his girlfriend’s name was essence
i used to see him reading his poems to her
as they walked down walnut street
dreadlocks
soul patch
dwayne wayne flip shades
his rap cadence made her as bored as it did me
i wonder if they’re still together
or if he’s boring another woman these days
is he even writing?
a guy like that he has to be
he can’t be out there just selling cars or stocks
back then he told every audience
that he had mornings where he just had to get up
and write a poem
he never said whether or not
he eschewed the morning coffee or the morning shit
he never said he had a hangover
perhaps he’s teaching poetry now
2pac’s lyrics right there with amiri and gary snyder too
what happened to that guy?
the spoken word poet of pittsburgh
neru or sparrow
or whatever the fuck his name was
at every reading he had to go off about bob kaufman
he was the only guy who ever really
read bob kaufman and got him
i’ll admit i’ve looked the spoken word poet
up on the internet
but there’s never anything about him
no slam battles and no headlining gigs
no nuyorican press book
with a cd of his work in the back
so you can really understand where he’s coming from
it’s like the spoken word poet
just fell off the face of the earth
without leaving a single line for us
just vanished to wherever spoken word poets go
off the grid
underground
where he’s keeping shit real
lying in wait
for the rest of us to catch up to him
and bask in his long-sought genius.
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