Friday, April 10, 2015

Writing, Poems, Whatever, But I'm Wearing a GUMBY SHIRT

I think everyone who knows me can agree that I have curated a lifetime's worth of pretty kick-ass t-shirts. It's a skill, a worthless skill, but one that occasionally pays off when I find a thirteen-year-old video of me reading poem in a Gumby milk mustache shirt. That's the kind of thing people need to see.

Oh, and there's a poem, kind of meta-, back before that was cool. Or maybe it was after that was cool. Enjoy.

You Gotta Like That



Here’s a poem you’ll like.
This poem is like a poem that tastes good.
This poem is like a poem that feels nice.
This poem is like a poem that sounds like
a truck full of rock and rollers
crashed into a truck full of
sassy sweet singing finches
 crashed into a small compact car
full of crazy techno beats.
This poem is a lot
like a poem that looks
like a poem that smells like
buttered popcorn flavored butter popcorn.
How do you like that?
You like that?
You gotta like that.

This poem has capful of whimsy
a handful of frippery
a mouthful flummery
a hatful of flippancy
a dump truck full virility
and a tomfoolery-sized dose of pleasantry.
How do you like that?

This poem, which I am about to read to you,
has a crazy amount of fanciful rhyming
describing an ark-full of wacky animal happenings.
the ants all dance in their ant dance pants,
and there’s a chance of glance of steamy ants’ romance.
the crows know where the ho's go,
and the ho’s beaus wear the plainclothes
but crows close when snow flows,
and those ho’s compose rows and rows of prose and pros
and cons that can ban the frying pan
whose plan began as a fan of the man.
You gotta like that.

I’m going to read you a poem,
that sounds the same backwards and forwards
that spells a perfect palindrome
that can be anagrammed into the Declaration of Independence
that can be diagrammed to look like the Golden Gate Bridge
its words are all homonyms and
its syllables are all homophones.
Turn up the bass, and it beats a flawless
bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow,
turn up the treble and it sings
like a thousand prepubescent American Idol castratos.
How do you like that?

You are about to hear a poem
in which I conduct spiritual surgery
You like that?
With a scalpel of truth
I will extract my soul,
How do like that?
I will hold my soul in front of you,
where you can watch it glow,
some of you may be moved to tears,
some may be moved to laughter,
others will move with the music,
and the rest will move to bathroom,
because this poem has been known
to make people have to pee.
You gotta like that.

But most importantly, people,
This poem is about you.
It’s about the things you like,
and people, believe me when I tell you,
you will like this poem,
you will wake up tomorrow morning and say
“Man, I would like to buy that poem on compact disc,”
the first time tomorrow you see a particularly beautiful woman,
you will say,
“Dude, I would like to have that poem tattooed on my ass,”
the first time tomorrow Mother Nature taps you on the shoulder
And blows kisses in your ear, you will say,
“Holy shit, I really liked that poem.”
How do you like that?
You gotta like that.