Keeping up with the Beckners–a slam (No. 1 in the Empty Glass Series)

Friends,

I hate that I won’t be seeing you much this week, but that’s just how it goes. The fact that I won’t is evidence that our little experiment is working, as I am making more money to write than I ever have. Still, while part of me enjoys the technical writing, you are my core audience, and here is where you are. Hopefully next week will allow for a bit more catching up.

In the post about writing as if I’m talking to the reader from a couple of days ago, “Stephen King…”, I spoke about how I always wrote my spoken word pieces with the central thought of what I would want to say to the audience once I got up there on stage once I got there. I also spoke of a slam called “Keeping Up with the Beckners,” which was my first such writing, dating back to that first Gypsy Productions Poetry Slam at the Empty Glass, which took place in November 1999.

So, for those of you who read that one, here’s the slam I mentioned. I hope you take something from it.

Be well, dear people, and be kind to one another. I hope to see you soon.

***

Keeping Up With the Beckners

 

What to say when it’s time to face the keyboard?

What to say when the time comes to write?

What words will be needed

to feed the demons

and assure peaceful sleep this night?

What words will be strong enough

to share with my friends

and affix with my name upon completion?

What words will be true enough

to make me say

I wrote these words, and I mean them?

Because I woke up one morning,

got myself rolling,

and found that I give a damn

about how things transpire

and those so affected

in the collection of the common woman and man.

Because I figured I couldn’t sit idly by

and allow things to happen just as they may,

that I must find an action from the soul within

and add my voice to that ongoing play,

that I must share, through passion,

those portions of myself

that I just might think might help another get through

on their trek through this life,

sometimes rocky it gets

on the way to the breathtaking views.

What I found was words.

This brings us back to the original questions:

What words to select?

What juxtapositions to use?

What to share?

What to convey?

How can I hold fast those demons

with just a pen?

I don’t always have the answers, but I keep looking,

because I woke up one morning

and found that I give a damn.

 

7 November 1999