On Pens and Needles

Between the body art and caffeine, poets
unveil a wired vat anthem of misnomer
ear candy epaulets filled with alien slang sarcasm,
a melodrama of cynicism and hedonism,
as they wield their pens like rapiers in the hands
of swordsmen slashing and stabbing, hacking
and slicing through the jungle and jumble
resonant in the mediocrity of middle-class life.

They open woe, open wounds and peel away
the scabby scars of society.

At night, you can hear them howl, creating
a cacophony of natural and unnatural sounds
flowing into the jazz like euphony of existence,
with words that are raw, flawed and unpolished.

A primal scream, a rap on life, a static noise
that echoes eloquent, powerful words ready to burst
into a spectrum of colors, images and stories  
painted in the pastels of nature and imagination. 

They write for the outlaws, the outcasts and
the outlandish, while they sip coffee and ponder
poems not yet put to paper.

They know Jesus never rode a Harley, but it is
Walt Whitman who is tattooed by the poets
reading at the Skin Deep Ink and Cafe.