belly flop open

well, in one sense i tanked tonight. and that pleases me immensely. i chose to do it. i could have stayed safe and nailed it, but i took the challenge leveled at my by kurtis lamkin and other poets present.

flying without a net, my catcher absent, and i wafted down to find the ground not so hard as i thought it would be.

i've jumped ahead of my story, he'd have hated that. let me start again.

we got lost. did i forget that little gem.
the whole way i'm calling out to kurtis, don't start without us.

we end up at a drug store of the same name (as the arts center) but in a different town. duh.

so we scramble and hop on the freeway (new jersey signage, if you've never been here, sucks!). i manage to run to a wal-mart to buy a map (why i didn't stop at a gas station for that, i don't know). i meet a man in line who tells me exactly where to go.

a half hour late, and i've abandoned the map in the long line at wal-mart, and run out the door. shoot off like a rocket and bolt into the building which is right where the man said it would be. (bless the man who knew how to give us accurate directions!).

we enter the room, and kurtis had just sat down, i get a smile of reckognition and a,

hey,

then he continues with his explanation of his instrument. the kora.

a colorful man named jerry challenges me to read my poems without reading. the oral tradition haunting me again.

so i feel brave, i know these poems, they are strong hearty children and they can withstand this brutal assault of memory.

forgetting the title of the first one (because one can't perform just one poem, no, one must climb to the top of the highest hill and leap headlong into the unknown).

i completely forgot the end of the first poem, and just talked to the people, but i did remember the title where i had left the end of the poem.

and i realized, poem is in some ways like jazz.

but i am not a jazz performer, i'm a poet.

but without a catcher, i am hardly a flyer. still i try.

i sat down with kurtis after and said,

i tried.

he encouraged me to keep trying. to feel the silence that comes and go with it. to reinvent the poem in the moment. he talked to me about ella fitzgerald and how she liked to forget lines,

because that's when a song comes alive,

he said.

i left out a lot of details of my poem, but the gist was there, and it was a moment i will not soon forget. how often does one get to completely tank in front of a huge poet?

we do our best, and i have three k.l. cds to succle on until i can get another someday.

it's good to know we live in a small world. that poets from south carolina end up in jersey more often than not. and that dodge is coming soon. the mecca of all poets.

and i shall be there, on staff. perhaps, even, on stage.

flying