three minutes (slam poetry)

Two hundred and fifty words
As many as three hundred
If one can manage elocution
Three minutes to touch you
To make you feel
How many drops do you feel when it rains?
What is it about this, the insistent pounding of the storm
That makes us feel alive?
The thunder of shared experience?
The pulse of commonality?
The chagrin of shared shame?
Gathered, like so many doves amongst the branches of life’s tree
Shivering in the storm
Glory to the vibrato, the one who makes us feel
Poet, preacher, penitent, fool
Give us your words and remind us what it is to live
To be utterly in the moment
Restless and hungry for it
Feed us sticky, chewy truth
Mana, from the heaven of shared spaces
In which we gather
Syllabic symphonic shouting
Give yourself to us that we may find ourselves in you
And remember, for at least this little while
That we are the same
Let us pretend a time that we are so
That the only thing that keeps us from the spotlight
Is that you tell it so well that we need not try
Preach on poet! pose and prose and prattle
Scream memes and madness under the moon
Whisper secrets hiding in plain sight
So we can believe they are known
And we are not alone
And it’s ok to stand in the storm
Raise our faces to it
Be anointed and yes, annoyed
Two hundred fifty words given
Three minutes of grace
Go….!

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