Poetry Reading

You stare at me out of the corner of your eye
Sitting in the smoke-filled, insense-burning, red wine lit room full of poets and soul-searchers
You think I don't notice you, but I do
I just don't care
To think that you can look at me with that dark, glassy gaze
part your eyebrows any old which way
and make statements with your mind that haven't even been said yet
you.must.be.trippin.
See, I don't fall for those slimey types
The type who pretend to be into what I'm into because it's another lonely Friday night
and Tyrone got a date and you don't.
Oh no. that ain't me.
I come in here for the atmosphere
the rings around saturn that silently swerve around my hips as I let these words release from my lips and let my exasperated mind finally tell it like it is
Where else can I get that?
And yes I may get jeered at for the color or lack thereof of my skin,
but they can never make snide remarks at the words I say or the sweat on my forehead as they pulsate from my mind, fighting valiantly to get out
Hey, I'm just tryin to give y'all somethin to listen to
And so the fact that you have the audacity to sit there,
sippin on a rail drink
eyeing me out of the corner of the room and corner of your eye
when the corner is anywhere but where I belong--
simply makes me laugh
Because a real man, see, my type of man?
Would be next in line behind me, ready to read his own,
ready to get his thoughts out to the world
ready to share his vision with the universe
while I sit in the corner and stare out the corner of my eye
at HIM.