Poetry

There are times when I have to wonder why I continue to live in New York City, with its disgustingly over-priced real estate, disgustingly overpriced everything, actually. Its sidewalks overflowing with trash and throngs of tourists in matching yellow ponchos, summers that are hotter than the tenth level of Hell in apartments that never come with air conditioning, a homeless population larger than my hometown who have more change in their collection cups than I ever have in my wallet. And to be a part of all this I pay a thousand dollars a month for an airless sixth-floor shoebox with a leaking sink and a broken toilet in a building that smells permanently like a litter box.

But then there times like the past forty-eight hours when I realize why I still live in this place—so I will never have to make up a story again in my life. Saturday night, in my attempt to become better acquainted with the downtown area, I thought I’d meet a friend for dinner on the Lower East Side, which anyone familiar with Manhattan can tell you, may as well be Rhode Island from where I live, but does have cool restaurants. Of course as soon as I emerge from my forty-five minute train ride with half the population of Chinatown, I have a message from my coworker detailing how I am to go to the other side of the city to give $500 to the transvestite magician we hired to entertain Neiman Marcus (don’t ask because I truly have no idea). Now I’m not sure how many of you have tried to locate a bank, let alone an account containing $500, in the trendy shopping district of Soho at 8pm on a Saturday, but it’s really not a lot of fun. Then try finding a single envelope and a cab so you can beat a magical drag queen to the front desk of a hotel so exclusive they barely let you in the lobby to leave half your pay check in cash because RuPaul has her wig in a knot waiting on the money to make a payment on her implants. Apparently my job description now includes “ATM to the Stars,” or whatever the hell she is, and your guess is as good as hers….or his.

The next night, I felt inspired to go be a part of the very “New York” phenomenon of poetry-reading in the East Village. Why I do these thing to myself is still not clear, and I really should have know by location alone- land of the Mohawked deep-thinker, where ripped tights and combat boots are always in style, I found myself wanting to explain to everyone I passed that safety-pinning your shirt together is not a fashion statement, so much as time to go buy new clothes.
I’m really only there for a friend, knowing as you do that I’m about as deep as my martini glass and by the time I get to the bottom of that I’m basically done with poetry. And so the reading goes pretty much how you’d expect an East Village event to go: angry lesbians, details of botched suicide attempts, rants with no meter, or rhyme or reason, with meanings as elusive as the damn waitress whose drink tray was my only salvation. Sadly without a-rhythmic bongo drums in the smoky background, but very bitterly Bohemian just the same. Line of the night: “There is no ‘I’ in fuck.” And all this time I thought it was a silent vowel -- thanks for clearing that up Mister Webster.

As it’s a Sunday night, I really have no intention of getting drunk, but when the star reader is introduced as a professor of erotic poetry who “channels the universe” at the New School, I have no choice but to begin chugging alcohol. So up to the microphone walks a 5-foot-tall, sixty-year-old Minnie-Mouse-looking woman, wearing round glasses as big as her head, and she begins reading- no shouting really- her series of Summer inspired erotic haikus. Now I am a grow woman and should be able to listen to a poem about sex, but when grandma is screaming about bush (and making no reference to the current President), I don’t care how old you are, you are going laugh out loud. So as she’s talking about flossing with ass hair, I have reverted to my 12-year-old self, with tears streaming down my cheeks, shaking with laughter and trying desperately to remember every word to tell all of you. I really nearly had to leave the room during the 5-minute rant on her ‘cream,’ where she told us how she would “cream all over Kansas, so there will be enough creamed corn for everyone,” much to the delight of the Heartland’s farmers, I’m sure. Thankfully she had books of her poetry for sale, which of course I had to purchase, so I now have my very own autographed copy Minnie’s view on balls and asses.

Basically just your run-of-the-mill weekend- drag queens, nymphos, vodka and me!