Legalize Poetry!
Mood:  cool

Last month I entered a poem in our city's annual Poetry Festival, and it got second place.  On Saturday, the winners were all invited to give a reading at the public library.

To get to the reading, I had to pass through a group of dreadlocked citizens who were holding a "Legalize Marijuana" demonstration right outside the library. They were beating drums and hollering "HONK IF YOU LOVE POT!"  My opinion about pot hovers somewhere around total apathy.  I do agree that mandatory drug sentencing is way out of control in this country (here's a lovely statistic: 1 out of 100 people in America are now behind bars).  I also agree it's arbitrary that alcohol and tobacco, which are far more lethal and corrosive to society, are legal while pot is not.  On the other hand, I've always been take-it-or-leave it about mind-altering stimulants.  Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all ('cause I get a kick out of you).

And so I proceeded to the library auditorium, where the illicit poetry den was being held.  There was a bit of a mix-up with the prizes.  The three winners in the children's category all got gift certificates to Starbucks.  I guess the poetry committee wanted them to get a head start on the espresso shakes.  It would have been really cool if they'd handed out miniature black berets and packs of Gauloises as well.

The adults went last.  I've spoken in public before, for pinups and design presentations, but I've never read any of my own writing out loud to a crowd of strangers.  It was here that I made the interesting discovery that when I get nervous, my nose runs.  I was terrified that it was going to drip right in the middle of the poem, right ONTO the poem, with all those people staring.  There was a microphone sitting on the podium, so I couldn't sniff.  There were no tissues, so no opportunity for a delicate, discreet blot.  All I could do was pray for a momentary gravity waiver, and get through the poem as quickly as possible without sounding like I was reading through it quickly.

I should have submitted a haiku instead:

In springtime, the nose
contracts in terror, becomes a
babbling brook of snot

In less amusing news, our company announced surprise layoffs on Friday after posting first quarter results that sucked the proverbial ho-ho.  My project team lost 12 people.  They always try to reassure the survivors that everyone is valuable, but that doesn't mean there won't be more layoffs.  Job security doesn't mean much anymore.  Whenever these layoffs happen, they're greeted with a yawn and a callous attitude of "it's just business, nothing personal".   Nobody ever questions the brutality of this system, or the idea that layoffs ought to be a last resort, not a first resort.  The executives' annual bonuses, stock options, and golf trips to the Caribbean never get put on the chopping block.

People are in a nervous mood these days anyway, from the mortgage crisis and health-care crisis and high gas prices and the looming recession.  I can't help thinking of Eddie Harnovey standing on the sidewalk after getting fired, his life packed up in a box, papers getting blown away by the wind.  Ordinary people shouldn't have to struggle so hard to get by.