Mike vs. The Openness

I’ve seen the mic
Get passed
Get slammed

By heartbroken lovers
Passionate preachers
And poetry pimps

I’ve seen women and men
Wield the mesh of steel
As if it were…
Excalibur
Unsheathed from the stone
That is a stand
As if it could
Make kings
Or queens of them

Is the mic
The power in poets’ palms
A magic wand that
Welds words to wattage
Helps hold hostage
The minds of those
Noisy
Revolutionaries?

Or is it an evil
Forcing patrons to
Yell more
Over all that is amplified
When they choose to converse
In competition
With verse?

Waging war
Against poetry

Perhaps theses machines
For public address
Are not necessities
For poets to connect

But rather
Accessories to the clamor
Of disrespect

Here, now
We have no mics,
No stands, or cords

Just words
Spoken from eight
Inch stage
Straight
Into air

Into ears
Lent freely
To anyone with words

Here, now
Our words
Need not change
Into electricity
To make possible
Exchange
Of vocabulary
And conviction

These naked words are
Projected honestly into
The openness
Of reverent attentiveness

Into the openness
Of an audience
Who came to listen

See, if force is used
It isn’t love
It’s abuse

Real love
Always
Lets its’ object choose

That’s why I don’t speak
Into an electronic scepter
When I read

That’s why this stage
Sports one speaker
Not three

That’s why the King of Kings
Doesn’t love
With a crown
Or a gun

His kind of love lives
On lips
And in ears
Tonight

So thanks,
For openness
In absence of mic