Ah Coffee reading makes more poetry

It is a heady experience being a featured reader. Many of my friends came and bolstered my confidence and the hosts and creators of The Poet Experience were welcoming, and their poetry was awesome. Amy's compositions are so lyrical and her voice so amazing that she should sing all the time, even words like "Where's the pumpkin? I feel like a jack-o-lantern." And Sylvia had an image of a horse in her poem that lingers with me still and Don (I think that was his name) painted beautiful southwest landscapes and some one else read about her 31 year old self (sorry I forgot your name). Susan Moger's prose and poetry were so moving that my sister cried.

Last night I woke at 3:42 AM, my mind awash with details from the night. As it turns out, my friend Susan also awoke about 4 AM and wrote a poem in her head that just blows me away. Here is her poem and it speaks to the reading more than anything I could possibly write.

I want to be a poet for Halloween
With golden hair like perfect parentheses
Wearing a transparent-sleeved blouse like a metaphor for hidden meaning;
In shoes as beautiful as the words "heart" "belt" "dock" "coat"
I want to be a poet for Halloween
Glamourous in the old way -- magical, spell-binding--
Turning words and hearts inside out

I want to be a poem of Mary's for Halloween
With turns of phrase that hook the heart,
Water images that melt sugary surfaces of perception
I want to be a poem of Mary's for Halloween
At a party with other poems, in a ribbon-tied book, made just for us.