Every Ant is a Poem.
Every ant is a poem
scurry scurry
up my horse
and across the surrey
My horse is dead
he fell right down
and bumped his head
His name was Jed.
I knew a man
played hurdy gurdy
bought me flowers
sure were purdy
Done left the city
for this ranch
I speak the prairie
don’t speak no Franch.
Hurdy gurdy man
bought me this horse
I named him Jed
of course, of course.
I killed my man
with this here rifle
with other women
he did trifle.
I cried myself
under the moon
If I die now
won’t be too soon.
My heart is broken
my horse is dead
the night has fallen
that’s what I said.
The ants are poems
eatin’ my pony
I’m stranded here
got no telephone –E
The ants done ett
Jed’s left shoulder
my ma won’t know
cause I cain’t told her.
Jed’s stomach done
released his intestine
the ants are gobblin’
like farm hands in the mess line.
Every ant is poem
goin up Jed’s nostril
I don’t know a word
that rhymes with nostril.
Maybe, like, pistol, or hostile
Oh yeah, that’s nice, real nice
somethin’ somethin’
HOSTILE.
See, I aint finished it yet.
Is that a bad poem? I certainly hope so, because I wrote it for the first round of the Artists’ Quarter Soapboxing American Idol poetry slam, where competitors in the first round do the worst poem they can, as badly as possible. Between my horrible country western poem and a staged fight between myself and the stunning Ruth Kohtz, I was pretty satisfied with my suckitude.
The second round was the cover song round, where the poets had to cover a poem by another poet. At my turn, I quietly announced that this was a poem by a local poet, and began, very quietly and very earnestly:
I was watching the sun set behind a row of corn
when I realized I loved you.
Those in the room familiar with Sam Cook’s “Honky Tonk” immediately screamed and expired, much to the confusion of everyone else. I performed the entire poem very sweetly and earnestly- though, this was what they may have been expecting:
Playing straightman to Sam’s poem paid off, and I performed “It is Hard.” in the final round, the “your best poem, as well as you can” round, garnering me second place to EZRA’s first place.
