Slam poetry

I challenged my students to write a slam poem. So I wrote one, too:


Word Stealers

To the spacey story lovers who find more importance in a single word than in a lifetime of talking.
I am you.
Or maybe I want to be you.

Today we say too much, we ramble on and on and on and on
And we can't keep a story straight to save our lives. Yada yada, he said she said.
Celebrities fought, critics cried, politicians pleaded
I'm up to my head in all the world's talk.

Leaders and politicians are still saying more
Because their "Ladies and gentlemen"
and "To whom it may concern" and their
"we'll make it better" tributes
are believed to turn tides. But come on, guys. You're talking too much.
You're consuming all the words.

And the heartless, made-up, done-up, congenial,
perfect white smiles on the 5 O'Clock news,
it's your cheesy grin,
your latest jokes and a not a second later, you take more cues
to speak about death and riots and your hair hasn't even moved
much less tears ensued. And don't you care? There goes Uganda. There goes Egypt.
Oh, that's right.
You're a projector.

The senseless chatter, the subjects that don't matter,
"Oh and God," I pray. "Please be with us in this day.
And bless this day, and bless her and him and the grass, the leaves. And Lord, cure the hangnail on my finger...wa. wa. wa. wa"
No better than Charlie Brown's teacher. And I wonder: "Is God ever telling us
to just be quiet?"

Just shhhhhh


think


Maybe it scares us, the silence.


Because we can't control the silence but we can control the noise


And now I remember. It's in First Kings, nineteen.
God says: "Go out and wait for me" and so we do
we stand on the mountain, and a great gusting wind blows us half away down
and shatters a mountain. "It's God! It's God!" we cry,
but he is not in the wind

Then an earthquake. I can see it. We're all yelling at the top of our lungs,
and it shakes us to and fro, and surely this is God with all his gusto.
But he is not in the earthquake.

A fire blazes, and our pyromaniac faces glow in the phases
of read and white and hot, fiery oranges. "It's God! Surely it's him!" and we're sure
He'll show up with a robe aflame.
But he's not in the fire.

Then a whisper. Hush.
I
said

a whisper.


Shhhh.

Be quiet Ron Swanson. Shut your face, Obama. You dutiful prayers. Not even you are worthy.
Quit believing God is in all our raccous noises. Stop rambling. Stop.

It's time we listened.