Story Behind the Song
This was first written as an opener to the first Dirty Word Live Open-Mic. I think it probably took me only a few hours to write. It wasnt intended to last for more than one performance, but somehow it has stuck around. People like it. At the time I wrote it, I was homeless and living out of the back of a white, Escort station wagon. The first performance of it was September 15th, 1996, and I hadnt slept for 36 hours before the show, except for a quick nap in the car outside the coffee house. A couple of months after that show I found cheap rent in a poets basement, and things worked out...sorta. But I'm ready to retire this piece. It's good to get it recorded and out of my way. As my first attempt at creating an mp3, this didn't turn out too bad.
Lyrics
Hi. My name is Kevin . . .
(Hi Kevin)
And I'm a poet. I never meant to be a poet. I was one of those guys that saw a poet on the street and said, "That'll never happen to me."
One day though, this girl came over. We were going to watch a rented movie, with a nice Hollywood ending. It had Tom Hanks in it. When I tried to put it in the VCR she laughed at me and handed me this piece of paper. I opened it. At the top it read, T. S. Elliot. When I realized it was poetry I started to get a bit freaked out, but I didn't want to look naive, so I read it. When I finished I handed it back to her and shrugged like, you know, no big deal, but in the back of my head I liked it, I wanted more.
I started out light, a couplet two, maybe three times a week, a quatrain on the weekend. Mild stuff at first, cummings, Shelly, Frost. stuff like that. But before I knew it I was up to five or six sonnets a day, Norton anthologies on the weekend. I was hitting names like Ginsberg, Dante', and Byron. I was gluttonous. I blew at least fifty dollars a week on high-grade paper and fancy pens. I bought a leather attaché case with a little compartment to hide a library card.
I didn't see the problem though. I thought to myself. "Hey. I'm in control, I can quit any time I want." My friends thought differently. I had to start hiding my notebooks and William Boroughs records. Still, all I could talk about was poetry. I would wake up every, morning, banging my head thinking about what an ass I must have made of myself the night before. Eventually my old friends drifted away.
That was okay, though. I had started to hang out in coffeehouses. Of course, I told myself that I was going just to meet girls. But it would always take a few pages before I got up the courage, and by then I was all poetic and they wouldn't talk to me. I met some other poets though, and they made good friends. They understood what I was going through.
Then I lost my job. They noticed that I kept sneaking off to the bathroom. I would only do a line or two, but then I'd come back spouting uncontrollably.
My mother came over one day. She had some picture of me at a poetry reading. I must have been completely enraptured at the time because I don't even remember her being there, let alone taking pictures. But there I stood on stage, dressed in all black, clove on the end of a long ivory holder. The whole disgusting cliche', right down to the beret.
She tried to be gentle. She said that she thought it might be good for me to get help. I didn't want to hear it; I yelled at her. I called her bourgeois and stupid then kicked her out. What she didn't know, was that when she knocked I'd been in the middle of downing some Bukowski and had stuffed it under a couch cushion before I answered the door. It was all I could think about the entire time she was there.
I tried to quit. I threw away all my writing paraphernalia, every scrap. I was doing well for about a month. Then this poet friend of mine came over. He was trying to quit too. He wanted some emotional support. When he left I found a copy of Beowulf lying in his seat. I stared at that sucker for what seemed like hours. Finally I couldn't hack it anymore. I grabbed it. I binged. I read it sixteen times before I lost count. After that I went nuts. I was out of control. I hit the streets looking for a dealer. I couldn't find anyone that I knew. Seems a bunch of them had been busted on obscenity charges and the rest were laying low for a while.
So I did something, something terrible. I never thought I'd go so low, but . . . I found someone pushing homemade 'zines. You never know what kind of quality you're going to get out of those but I didn't care, I took one anyway. And . . . I don't want to admit this, but - I gave him a submission.
I think what did it, was one night I came home real late. I'd been at Kinko's, copying, trying to make a little extra to support my habit. When I 'walked through the door, there was my cat on the couch, waiting up for me. I broke into a sweat, checked to make sure I'd washed all the ink off my fingers and that I didn't have any notes sticking out of my pockets. He gave me this look, like he could see right through me, into my wallet, at the library card that I'd promised to shred. I tried to explain, but ended up just stammering. He didn't say a word. He just picked up a can of Pounce, a coupon off of the table for litter, and stormed out. And I haven't seen him since.
Hi. My name is Kevin, and I'm a poet.
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