the time came upon the local reading at a local café. as i arrived there, a strange feeling pumped the fuel of my stomach. i knew that this would be something that i would never forget. nevertheless, as i had given my name to do my thing. the feathers around my ears of people gushing in and out, just about did me in. never had i spoken in front of anyone since the 8th grade, which left me to remember the many bottles of beer that i inhaled just around the corner to help me breathe. the irony of it all had finally set in. here no brown bottles were present. yet, the bottle of a few poems calibrated the air all around and bathed the walls with sprinkles of “beat.” most immediately i thought, “man i’m going to be out of place here with my few words of imagery.” the world around me seemed to have a roomy effect, one that i had not breached upon for many years, and calming me for a moment.
before this, the urgencies of my life gutted trenches in every avenue upon which i had walked. i was living on the fringes outside the bottle. these trysts of depression led to gates of wallowing silence, with a resulting lather of book reading. quietly, they were ravaging the hills of my mind with new thoughts that i had not yet fully discovered at an earlier age. what was happening to me? co-workers wondered what was going on with me. i would not speak. i would sit at breaks and lunches reading whitman each time, tryin to come up with what he was writing. finally the eyes were slowly pilfering into the bottle as saliva wetted the abundance of words that revolved around me.
in three plus years, i have found my life with “poetry in a bottle.” the glass around me, with shards eminent and radiating, bolstered images of which i never knew. imagery was setting in with the tide of the earth in spins upon my brow. yet, why had not this reached fulfillment long before? yet, i had landed in the belly of a literature straight jacket. everything else about life had dragged in the nets without much recovery or sense of imagination.
the very moment posed with a slugged fierceness against my eyes, as if being in a ring with a sparring partner who was better than i. could i really fit my works into the bottle and still feel like i had accomplished something? trying to build up some dire fire confidence with sitting there. i could hear the grunge of vehicles hissing outside, like a cop blowing his whistle directing traffic. time was getting frantically close for me to do my thing, as the list was growing shorter in elapsed chunks. my new world was starting to open, and the bottle hanging over me was like a halo without the buzzards hovering inside. knowing where i was on the list, i knew they would call me next to do my thing. after hearing my name, i rose from my seat while focusing on my destination. my clothes felt like goose bumps on my skin.
i was now at the small podium along with all my drudgery of spitting out a few poems i had. the fear there, but the “poetry in a bottle” opened up the words out of my mouth. that feel of inner release left me with a blushed look on my face. it flat out paralyzed me as the realization of the outside world pressed upon the dark crust of the bottle. as i left, i knew the bottle opener decompressed just enough for me to walk out with sanity still pocketed. i had been like a can all shook up and as if somebody had finally released the tab.