Poetry Update. With a Surprise Announcement!

Wow. Take a look at those last 3 poems. "forward", "flexible plans", "the memory of demons"...and that hangover one, a little further down the page ("wine half-hangover beautiful")? Shoot. Anybody who didn't know me better would think I was hitting my stride.

So, those of you who have been keeping up with my poem-a-day-on-average poetry blog, A Pocketful of Poesy, will have noted what a fucking breeze it was for me this year to keep pace. As opposed to last year's Q1 lag, followed by Q2-3 gathering stride, followed by early Q4 panicked realization and furious mad rush to excellence and triumph aka, "The Drive For 365." Well, nail-biting suspense is fun sometimes, I guess! And those mad-rush poems, particularly those from last November's epic and now-legendary "FORTY-POEM NIGHT" (check for yourself if you don't believe me, pal! November 2009 Archive), stand proudly amongst my best efforts in that line. But as much as I may thrive under pressure, I must now say how satisfying it has been this year, to simply set a stately pace and enjoy the fruits that fall to hand as I stroll. We knew that I could kick enormous portions of ass when the whole bag of jacks was on the line, under the Gun of Damocles (to update a mossy old Classics allusion). We knew that I could thrive, juke and jive when my back was up against the wall, cigaretted and blindfold on, stalling for the reprieve. We all knew that! Shit. We either knew it or we were stupid. Who doubts me in desperate circumstances?!

But this year, my performance just goes to prove that I can also be reliable without a crisis to prod me with a good kick in my poetic "balls" so to speak. I'm real pleased to be able to see me come through like this, out of a pinch, on this more laid-back level. Very pleased.

And so I think the time has come for me to say a few words to my fellow poets, out there. Poets of ink and page, or poets of the internet. Poets of the soul! Poets of the heart and mind. So many of you have been bringing me such encouragement - whether by the kind comments you leave, or by the output you put out yourself, which so often seizes by the collar, jerks tears, provokes thought, delights, teases and/or inspires, even as it tickles fancily in the general vicinity of my muse-bone. So to all of you poets out there, to whom I am so grateful for the inspiration you provide even as you challenge me to raise my own level! - I want to say:

Boo yah.

In your FACE.

Because have you SEEN these poems of mine lately??!! You think you can HANG WITH THAT? Do you seriously think you can hang? You think you got rhymes like mine? Your rhymes are not like mine. Some of my rhymes do not even rhyme, and you've STILL not got rhymes like my non-rhymed rhymes. I gots more styles than a model's got smiles. Any other suckas who step to this, they'll be paddling down a river called denial! Without any decent oars. They're like, using their hands. And my rhymes are like the piranhas! Nipping at your tips as you dip your fingers in gingerly to those deceptively smooth yet perilous waters. Point being: Do you seriously think you can hang? Point being: because if you DO think you can hang, what would you be willing to do to PROVE it? Would you be willing to BRING IT?

Point being, this: is a throwdown.

As they used to so say back in the day, "Sucka emcees...!" - and that phrase would be followed by a dismissive or derogatory remark! Now, I'm not going to take it to that insulting level, but I am here to announce that in 2011, get ready. I am bringing a similar ethos to the realm of the purely poetic. I think you'll find your rhymes are not like mine. But you'll have every chance to bring your own and show you're grown. To come strut and stutter and flow, to flip the rythmic of the static word, to deliver to us all the knowledge and sooth to the point of hundred-proof truth, to let us see and know that what you got is no goof. That's the overview. A venue for all poets to come together, and show it how they know they can throw it. Now here's how it's going to unfold:

Wait. You know what? Let me just throw that out there as a warm-up, and leave it at that. Details to follow. Specifics, to follow.

When the call comes, get ready. It's going to be an invitation to all poet comers and up-and-comers, ballers, players, even poet-haters if they can bring the verse that makes you so mad it's like bad to worse when they take your style down a peg or two! Can you take it? If you can't take it, don't bring it...! But if you CAN take it -

Well, brace yourself then, because soon it won't be 2010, and in 2011, I'm about to provide the venue. Internet poetry is an art form, as we know. Now what I want to know is, who out there is ready to take it up and break it down at the level of a head-to-head maestro showcase.

Guess who for starters?

That's right. This guy right here.

Feel free to holler a bit in the comments, if you think you might be interested.