-An afterthought from thepoetryman-
Slam poetry is one of my favorite forms of expression. I had never read or heard Shira's poems before, so when I stumbled across her You Tube of "Daddy's Parking Lot Sermon" I was quite delighted.
My slam experience---
I used to Slam on a regular basis
Every other week
A few years back.
It’s an upfront medium
Writ large from page to stage,
From reflection to form,
From experienced-legs splayed
In a varicose/bellicose vein.
Wide, cracked open and read
With swift thrusts to head,
Uproar a downtrodden spirit
From child's crib to atom bomb,
Life’s tender shell in transit.
Pay your dues or succumb
To the pen’s agonizing caress,
To the reader’s waiting orifice,
From throat, to tongue
to expresshhhhhhhhun,
To eternal/internal rants
Inching the blood’s distance.
Plunging, swimming… immersed,
Slammed or spoken verse
Can deeply weaken an iron-knee
With a figure made of speech,
Or twist tall subjects
Away from themselves
And hoist them inside out.
Slam poetry can slip, drip and split
Clean off the inside edge of
The coffee stained page,
Rap a steel bar
To the back of the head
Or massage steely minds
With angel's hands.
