August 28, 2009

I've been looking for a local coffee shop this last week. I still have a few more to check out, but Green Bean has been my favorite so far. Some Mars Hill students host a poetry slam there occasionally on Saturday nights called FreeForm (I think).












In our search of the local thrift stores for furniture, I found a panther. It's a dark hue of goldish...something, with the cat crouched menacingly on a fake rock. The elbows (?) of the cats legs are meant to hold a square of glass for a table but the glass didn't come with it. Cost me ten bucks. And now it is the first thing you see when you walk into our house.

We wondered what to call it at first. Cheetah, Cougar, Lion, etc. Cougar sounded too much like a woman thing so we settled on Panther. Johnny got some keys made for our house with a panther on them and a swirl of red fire around his black body.

Skip ahead to August 29th...

We (me, Dan and Johnny) just returned from FreeForm. We walked into the small, crowded coffee shop and sat in the front row, the last available seats. People came up to read poetry, sing a song or tap dance. Mostly they read poetry. And mostly it was good. Like, some of it was really good. Publishable.

One student from Louisiana read a poem about her study abroad program. It was about Spain, the culture and loneliness. Another guy read several poems, almost plainly but with meaning. One guy in a "To Write Love on Her Arms" t-shirt played a banjo and sang about God and home.

The main "act", I guess, was Sara...something. Last name sounds like sassafras. She read 4 or 5 poems of her own, two with math in them. She reminded me of my mom. Shortish, hair cut to the length of her neck, in dark colored clothing. Confident air of success about her. And aggressive.

Partway through her reading, she asked if everyone was ok to go on.

"You guys ready to go on?"

I, sitting in the front row, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh."

Her eyes dropped like an elevator and stared at me. "What the fuck?"

I laughed quietly (and a bit awkwardly).

"This guy in the front row just shrugged his shoulders and said 'meh'," she announced.

I could hear laughter in the crowd and feel my face getting red but I wasn't very embarrassed. I kept thinking of my mom and how she can be aggressive sometimes but I love her for it anyway cause its part of her personality.

The red rose in my cheeks and I could see her eyes. Noticing it.

"Now his cheeks are getting red."

I raised my hands in the air in a gesture of defeat. "I am sufficiently embarrassed," I admitted, laughing. She continued to read the rest of her poems, watching me from time to time.

One of the last read two poems about the earth and Michael Jackson. She looked like a tomboy. Recognizably a girl, but hair either cut short or hidden in the top of her hat and long black polo.

"My first poem will be read in the voice of the earth." She threw up her hands. "Because she's tired of our shit."

I nearly lost it. I couldn't BELIEVE she was reading a poem in the "voice of the earth". She had good things to say, I'm sure but it felt forced. A bunch of hyper-environmental agenda stuff.

The last she read was about Michael Jackson. A couple people kept calling out, "Michael Jackson!" and I didn't know what they were talking about until she stood to read the poem. Again, forced. Something about his childhood and how we didn't understand him. Yeah...

Quite a day. I'll post pictures of the house soon. Especially the panther.