Crank #4 - Poetry Slam, Part 2

I hope you didn't miss the Crank Poetry Slam, Part 1!

Crank
Style

Part 2:
This drunk's luck

Those who cannot write...write poetry.

Those who cannot write poetry...
force it upon anyone stupid enough to say "Oh? you're a poet?"

Those who can write poetry...
know better than to bother writing poetry.

One Wednesday night, last January: Tom and I were at the bar, leaning on the jukebox, waiting for a place to sit. After a few minutes, a booth opened up. Edging past two underage suburba-punks, we slipped in.

Bedding down for the evening, I took off my coat and put it on the ledge that runs alongside the booths. Hey, what's this? A notebook? No, it's a 3-hole, soft-cover folder.

A thief by nature and reflex, I slowly slid the folder onto the seat next to me. The cover was blank--no name, no phone, no address. I opened it up quietly and, to my surprise, it was filled with typewritten poetry. No names, no phone numbers, no addresses.

I read the first line of the first poem: "They send children to war because grown ups wouldn't go / They send children to war because they do not know."

HOLY SHIT! It was bad poetry. REALLY BAD POETRY! I'd found fucking GOLD MINE!

I leaned across to Tom and told him to finish up, that we were getting out of there now. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Nothing," I said. "Just trust me. Let's go."

I put the folder under my coat and we left. On the way home, I read the poems aloud. Boy, did we laugh.

In an effort to rid the world of yet another bad poet, I am printing the folder in its near-entirety. Originally, I had planned to critique each poem, but I found myself with the same comments for each poem: "you deserve to get fucked by a horse," "you should be ashamed at yourself for forcing so many rhymes," and "boo hoo, vet' boy."

Instead, I asked a few friends and acquaintances to do the work for me. Their instructions were: "read the enclosed poetry, and--when you've stopped laughing--please sketch your vision of this would-be poet."

Some of my favorite renditions follow. Most people drew their vision of the "poet," while one person rendered a vision that came to him after reading the poetry. Between the poetry itself and the accompanying illustrations, you're in for a real treat.

Thank God I'll be out of town before this hits the streets. Between this guy and the Anarchists I'm a dead man next time I step into town. No joke.