I always saw poetry as something of a masturbatory exercise: it was easier, quicker, and less involved than doing the real thing; in this case, expository writing. It always seemed to be practitioned by young, liberal, overly sensitive types. As I co-joined that list in two out of three of these locations, I found it doubly offensive.

So, imagine my offense when I found these poets lounging in my favorite post-work dive bar. It was an affront to have to listen to this crap when all I wanted to do was have a beer. The poets had the traditional "hipper-than-thou" attitude to round out their already obnoxious personalities. They all exuded that "I don't give a fuck about anything" sort of expressivism that most of us shed upon high school graduation. One of the all-male clan found one of our female members, Ella, to his liking apparently, and tried to engage her in conversation. She exuded a polite "you repel me" aura which drove him off in short order, but not before leaving us with a few flyers.

The poor quality of their audio system--all flat and tinny--reminded me of the PA system that Jim Jones used in Guyana. So much so in fact that it moved me to compose about 24 lines of poetry entitled "Jim Jones said it best--have some Kool Aid". It was meant to be horribly offensive, it ended with the title line and the only other I can at this point recall is the line "Howl wasn't meant to be read over a Mr. Microphone". I passed it down the bar in order to amuse my fellows, who enjoyed it muchly.

Ella, however, enjoyed it a bit too much. She decided that she would take advantage of the open mic situation to go up and read it to the crowd. The rest of us gathered our belongings and prepared to sprint back to the relative safety of the office after she read it. She certainly looked the part--dressed in black and smoking a slender cigar.

She read through the poem and to our surprise, the poets replied with applause. Our digs had glanced off them--they'd taken it all wrong. Where we had intended offense, they saw it as self-depreciation, tounge in cheek. We had meant to piss them off, and they thought it was cool. We finished our beers and left the place. We never did see the poets in there again, but every so often one of them crops up in the local paper with some reading. Suffice it to say that we give it a less than respectful distance.