Storyteller
Supernatural Bridge by Rick Mobbs
This was written before I knew about the latest prompt on Rick Mobbs’ blog, “Mine Enemy Grows Older” (ironically, written the same day he posted the prompt). I looked at what I’d already written and found…that it paired up with Mr. Mobbs’ work, “supernatural bridge” (pictured above) well. So here is my poem for the prompt, in all its raw glory. Enjoy.
-Nicole
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GIVE ME THAT FUCKING MICROPHONE. Let me tell you a story. Let me entertain you. Let me make you think. Let me make you cry. Let me make you laugh.
Let me show you angels. Let me show you demons. Let me show you lost souls and saints, sometimes both wrapped up in the same body. Let me show you crosses upon which men hang and become lean, weather-beaten victims of torture and crowns of thorns that rip flesh off of skulls and send ribbons of blood streaming down faces.
Let me take you up to the mountaintops of Heaven to sample angelic choirs singing so sweet that every diva on Earth will either snap their fingers or growl with jealous rage.
Let me take you down into the abyss of Hell. And no, there will not be any cake waiting there for you. Just pure, raw, wretched insanity that will make your mind cave inward, leaving you a drooling, mindless mess. That’s why you need me to be your Virgil, your poet guide, to show you and shield you at the same time.
Let me show you Buddha meditating under his tree. Let me show you Krishna with his beautiful indigo skin, midnight black hair, and seductive flute music that will grab your ear and fuck it. Let me show you Mohammed, standing aflame in the desert, burning with holiness and lust by turns. Let me show you many more men who burn like torches and women who sing like lost, fallen angels that Heaven has refused and that Hell can never have.
Let me show you dirty street corners and scrubbed asphalt ghetto basketball courts. Subway walls with words of love and pain cut into their chests with the spray paint blood still dripping. The city at night, crunk, dressed like a concrete whore in her neon finery.
Let me show you blood.
Let me show you flesh.
Let me show you love.
Let me show you life.
Let me show you the WORLD.
I am qualified to do this, because I am a POET. I eat DICTIONARIES for breakfast and then FART RHYME and SHIT POEMS before lunchtime. I gobble down conversations and them spit them back out at you, coming out of new mouths and in new lines. I INJECT LIFE, cut my veins open, and bleed that shit out again through my pen.
And I do this all for you.
And I do this all for me.
And it is not just me – Nicole – that I speak of as a poet. I speak of anybody fucking brave enough to pick up a pen and say something…brave enough to show the world their demons…brave enough to speak of the ills of others…brave enough to let their pens and mouths run like a crazed shaman and tell….STORIES.
Brave enough to be…a poet.
So GIVE ME THAT FUCKING MICROPHONE.
And let me tell you a story.
Written 8/28/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
Wow! You bet. It fits.
holy shit,, this needs to be read out loud.. i can see the wonderful slam influence is coursing thru your veins here… wow.. i love it…
{{Standing up in Applause}} !!!! That was simply awsome, beautiful, haunting, thrilling, so many words. But most of all it’s poetic! I felt all the blood in your veins rushing as I read this! It got me going, into it, feeling it, and appreciating it. And thank you so much for telling me this story today! Peace, Light and Love. . . CordieB.