Category Archives: Revolutionary Napkin Poetry

Yearning For A Downtown Small Cafe

I hear.
I feel.
I see.
I’ve gone quiet.

Ah, Marianne!
Ah, Trish!
Muses of the bench!
What moments I had
with you
(and Paul, and all)
in that small cafe.

Not for the discounted
pastries (past 9 p.m.)
came I,
but for the fuel
that filled me
from words tumbling
and singing
and screaming
from hearts
and souls
and minds.

How many
napkins
ripped I apart,
furiously scratching
short verse
that vented my brain.

Now?
Now,
so far from that place
I can’t even remember
its name;
So removed
from the Enliten’d
creative muse
that once
lit my flame;
I struggle
to have a voice,
to say what I must,
what I should.

My woods,
rocks,
rills,
temple’d hills
sing loud
and sweetly to me,
as wrens call
each morning
and wind and owls and coyotes and I
howl
each evening.
And I can capture that all,
that peace.
There is no torment,
no pain,
as there was so often
there.

Yet, here,
there is something still
missing,
a driving force
that came from knowing
each week,
on one night,
I needed to stand up
on wood-plank’d floors,
to raise my voice
toward a black and silver orb,
to lift my hands,
to clear my mind,
to speak for myself.

Demographic Shock: Napkin Poem Free-Verse Improv Poetry

This poem was written years ago — I don’t know when — at Speak For Yourself open mic night in Provo, Utah, at Enliten Cafe / Guru’s on Center Street

The napkin poem
of the evening
is caught
in demographic shock,
and so must celebrate
we, who are not celebate,
we who are
older.

At last, I’m seeing
more gray beards,
male AND female,
with listening ears
and minds.

They bring their words
of wisdom,
words of age.
Some may rage,
but mostly we just say
lessons we’ve learned,
words we want to share,
because sharing words
keeps us safe.

Sharing words keeps us
angst-less,
and keeps us living,
and keeps us
alive.