Open Reading Blues

By: Vampyre Mike Kassel

Written with Dawn Oberg

Well, you thought you were a poet when you put on that beret.
You took Creative Writing One at San Francisco State.
Now you lurk at open readings like an unexploded bomb.
You read for just 5 minutes but it was 30 years too long.

You went to all the workshops and they told you you could write.
Your teacher did not flunk you 'cause she's chronically polite.
You think your stuff's surreal because all signs of sense are gone.
You read for just 5 minutes but it was 30 years too long.

You write all about Nature and the birds and plants and trees.
You write about your lovers, how they left you with disease.
Go get a job at Hallmark, 'cause that's where you belong. 
You read for just 5 minutes but it was 30 years too long.

You rant about your politics and what you read today. 
You rant about your loneliness and how you can't get laid. 
Got one hand on your poetry, the other on your dong. 
You read for just 5 minutes but it was 30 years too long.

You read all of the Beats but never dug a word they said. 
You think you're Alleg Ginsberg, we wish that you were dead. 
If Ginsberg heard the shit you write he'd beat you like a gong. 
You read for just 5 minutes but it was 30 years too long.

At every open reading there's a boring shmuck like you. 
You can't wait to get up there,
We can't wait until you're through. 
They would not let us kill you, so we put you in this song. 
You read for just 5 minutes but it was 30 years too long.

From Zeitgeist Press: Vampyre Mike Kassel was a poet, musician, songwriter, and playwright. He resided in San Francisco after having been run out of Boston for crimes against normalcy. He held the S. F. record for most times evicted. He liked sincere girls who didn’t wear too much makeup and who put out on the first date.

M.A. Kassel wrote, published, and performed enthusiastically in the San Francisco poetry and music scene for decades. He died in 2008, and will be mourned by many women and several cats.

You can find Kassel’s poetic works at Zeitgeist Press.