My Pinched Pen

I’m drafting these lines
with this black ballpoint 
I pinched last night.

I walked along to hear 
a Sunday poetry hour:
eight Seattle readers

and their flown-in guest,
met in the high space
of the Lutherans

next door to Hugo House
where all those writing
programs take place.

Overflow events
get scheduled at the warm
Parish Hall - Copper Canyon
 
Press events are that.
The professionalism!
Their charming interns!
 
Jacket-and-tie gentlemen
offering to assist.
The smart and various books,

at cutely propped angles;
the tote bag yours -
should you spend up big.

(Buy two books, the third is free! -
irresistible, 
except by me.)

And not just today’s 
poets on display -
Kooser, Skoog, Doshi -

but Tagore, Neruda,
Cadora’s Rilke -
‘You must change your life’!

Before I can sit down
I must take the leaflet
and pen. Question:

what words come to mind
when you meet the word Poem?
I write down: concentrated,

purified, musical
(not mentioning
my own betrayal);

then surrender what really
they want: contact details.
Not long till Copper’s

next publicity drive blocks
my congested inbox.
Two microphones up there -

soon they’re in action
welcoming schmoozing
with introduction

of all and sundry.
The whole community
of poetry is here,

the Poetry in Buses 
Poet Planner, 
the Bent Writing

Institute Founder,
the Copper Executive
Editor. They all read

and enthuse, we hear
and applaud. Lord,
we’re such supporters. 

And now the guest,
the strong dark presence,
almost-bared chest,

long locks tossed,
his laughing resonance,
reads from his new book,

The New Testament!
Jericho Brown!
how well you go down,

how jealous I am
of your nerve and aplomb,
your bold revisionism,

your pain and redemption.
My good-bad fortune
was - unaware almost
 
of race and identity -
not being awoken,
'not changing that life’, 

I slip quietly away 
with my pinched pen 
and so little to say.