8th MAD Open Mic: Captured Words

English verbal creations of all variety swirl round the mirrored pillars of Café Concierto La Fídula at the 8th iteration of Marjorie Kanter’s MAD Open Mic. Multiple-voiced ghost stories and spontaneous maternal monologues, couplets dedicated to the micturating elderly and comic verse lamenting loss of love to 92 flavors of cheese. I’m not the only one who finds writing vital in this city.

This marks the second time I’ve signed myself up for the event without having written a damn thing, in the not unreasonable expectation that the best kind of inspiration is last minute panic. I read-perform a piece I’m provisionally and pretentiously calling modern romance. It’s designed with the intention of performance, but perhaps the stance in the photo will offer some glimpse of how it plays out on stage.

modern romance
so he video calls me from italy, a party.

me in my terra firma he in his,
connected by pixels and garbled partynoise.
fuzz, and then — focus.
colors flashing,
whirling the lens,
image blends:
long table full of mad revelry.
young people old people knickknacks wine,
international gewgaws:
african ambassador, chinese figurines,
ceramic german beer steins and costa rican beach tapestries,
jade and wood and molded plastic,
the atypical made typical:
mama nostra’s own ravioli steaming, screaming,
it’s a small world after all.

and—
extended arm and reflecting his face,
starkly,
spine shudders,
dirty little jolt that
it’s me by whom he aims to be seen.

unseen prior inhalation results in slow smoke emerging from cracked songwriter’s lips,
pursed out,
kissing filthy smoky airstreams,
softly forming smokeships drifting up and curling round extended finger,
and i know it’s me,
i know i am the uncoiled finger and
i know that this sootsnake has me encircled entwined entranced enraptured encaptured, and
his eyes on the lens
his eyes on the screen
his pixellated digital representation coolly seeking connection,
narrowed eyeslits sultry through smokescreen,
and finding me
in my buring racing retinas and
in my aching frantic heartbeat,
my insistantly pulsating bloodstream.

it is image and
it is a simularum and
it is constructed and
it is a construction and
it is a creation
unto me,
just for me,
only for me.