Open Mic at Art6 Gallery

Open Mic at Art6 Gallery

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Reformed Party Girl

That woman found Jesus,
trading in nights on the town
for mornings at the altar,
draping herself in scripture
instead of the barely-there dresses
she loved to wear under the
dim lights of the club scene.
You can still talk to her
but be careful for you may
have to eat some of your words
normally used for no-holds-barred
conversations for those are
no longer par for the course.
She’s now getting closer to God,
demanding that the next man
who wants company with her to
head down the same road.
It’s a far cry from the
free-wheeling nights where
she and her friends dared to drink
and dance with random men with
reckless abandon.  Today she walks
a straighter line in search of peace
and salvation, trying to leave
all the partying behind.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Turn The Tables

Silence
is not golden;
it is owed.
 
So say those
who believe in
keeping the peace,
 
shouting down
voices that won’t
abide and stating
 
over and over again
what they believe
is true.  But the
 
defiant ones that see
through the bullshit
keep finding ways to
 
make noise, keep
delivering their own
manifestos for they
 
know that sleepy heads
are arousing, rising from
conformist slumber, ready
 
to join ranks.  Soon the
waves will come crashing,
drowning out the
 
status quo.  Then they
will have to make payment
on their owed silence.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Chasing Alcohol In A College Town

Sitting in a parking lot
full of pickup trucks
with Confederate flags
and gun racks adorned
in their back windows, I
 
finally found a moment
to question why I had to
follow these country boys
here.  I guess somewhere
in the course of my first
 
taste of adult freedom along
with youthful exuberance
and the promise of beer, I
decided to hop in the back seat
of one guy’s beat up Chevy and
 
trek far, far away from the
safety of the college campus
all because he and his roommate
knew a guy who could get us
eager but underage pups a
 
couple of six-packs of
adult refreshment.  Something
should’ve told me that their
country twangs would lead me
into unchartered territory, but
 
the voice of reason may or
may not have spoken to me or
I was just a bit too loony and
just wanted to do something else
beside stare at my computer.
 
But in that moment of sitting
in that honkytonk of a
parking lot, I wished I had
paid attention and maybe I
would not have found myself
 
here in the middle of a
country nowhere staring at
flags and guns with visions of
hoods and nooses dancing
in my head.  All I kept
 
hoping for was that those guys
would get back in this Chevy
and drive away before any
of the locals saw this brown face
that was definitely out of place. 
 
Lucky for me no one did
and we all got out of this
redneck nirvana with what we
were questing for and headed
back to the confines of campus
 
where we sat in my room,
drinking the night away.  That’s
when the voice of reason broke
through my buzzed state, speaking
clearly the words I needed to hear:
 
Don’t you ever do that again.