City Lights on the Bus

Jacob Cohen knocked out the audience during the open mic portion of the •Chance Operations• reading on May 10.

The next •Chance Operations• will be Monday, June 14, and Monday, July 26, at Duff's in the Central West End. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. on both evenings.

Featured readers for June 14 are Gena Brady Allen, Eileen G'Sell, and Stefene Russell. Interested readers may sign-up for the open mic first come-first serve at the reading.

city lights on the bus

bus rides
flipping thru a poetry book
the 1st anthology of published poets i actually plan on reading
stepping up my game
living a full life
there are secret conversations hidden right in front of our ears
it's moments like these---
the beautiful trumpet woman with dreadlocks boards with 3 others
musicians, yes
gyspies? maybe, but beside the point
she has a young face, brimming with all those young experiences had these days in well-placed rags about soft-skinned bodies
we both want kombucha, but settle for beer and maybe there's something to this---
don't go too far
it's not safe
and i'm not famous
saint loser with nothin but a cigarette seems a trip now, the 30 bus comes intermittently, between thoughts of cartoonish existence and dreams of broken glass shards passing thru the jugular of (insert dead white man)
inspired, well less than inspired by poetry in motion, i keep eyes glued to page, but ears trailing towards the ---
i think she & her musician friends is headed toward red & black, i have a feeling---
it doesn't matter much, who is talking, just that i probably shouldn't be listening
we missed the bus, an hour
wait now
no, saved by the honk of a horn as two white people board the wrong bus
they are not us
i serenade sean to a ferlinghetti poem he has read before
it's all been read before
it's all been said before
we've all been dead before
i wander back to internal discussion with desire
she says i need not question, knowing damn well that this IS what's best for the both of us
i keep forgetting how much i've forgotten
this close to the brink of determination
eternal stagnation
the middle of a poem IS the end of a song
and a long
drawn-out pause can pass by in a blink
the city's plugged-in, it don't have to think
the city ain't burning
the city IS a suburb
the city got the PO-lease
the city died in a freak chemical spill, but won't keep it's fuckin eyes shut
the city IS a blank white page filling with dark red drips
the city IS a poorly placed question
a poorly worded answer
the city
THIS CITY
THIS CITY
smells like colon cancer
the city thinks one thought:
that IT is some final statement.
but we all wash away in the flood...

-- Jacob Cohen