Homophonia

this is not a performance

poem

this is not what i call home

but i’m steppin’ out of my comfort zone

new horizons

filling the void

rules…torn up

false idols…destroyed

i’m expanding

foaming at the mouth

as the words on this page

embolden my tongue

but I’m not sure this is where i belong

give me paper

give me a pen

Gimme Shelter

by a Rolling Stone

“It’s just a shot away”

or two shots, just to be safe

dropping the C-bomb on cOvid

before it Metamorphoses

into something more prosaic

traditional, poetical rhyme

has become

a poor relation

to Insta

free verse

and performance

but i’m gonna drop my fiVe

into the brotherhood of PO-ETRY

‘cos i’m wondering lonely in this crowd

where the thoughts in my head

get read out loud

by me, myself;

just i

can’t i be incognito?

while i’m dying up here like a choking John Doe

(or should that be John Donne?)

or just hide behind shades

like John Cooper Clarke

as he snarls on the stage

and darkens the dark

you see

my use of synonymity

hides my zeal for anonymity

it reminds me of that simile

i’m like…

well…

you know…

i’m like

clamming up

like an

idiot

no, wait…

that’s an

idiom

and now I’m sounding a little

homophonic

WHAT?

you gonna arrest me?

or maybe

you should cancel me?

cos I don’t

butcher

a sentence into three disjointed limbs

with two awkward pauses

defying all reason

declining all rhyme

dissecting

truncating

mighty and meaty grammatical clauses

there’s an art to standing

i’m not sure it’s my calling

drawing on scrawlings ripped out of my being

like verbal graffiti

the ultimate

lyrical

aerosol

but

“I’ll be back”

like John Connor

sprayin’ rhymes that are gone on

the beat of your drums

but stick in your mind

so much longer

than any Banksy

can stick to a wall

before

it’s auctioned off

to Phillistines

i remember when tagging was treated as crime

so i’ll keep stepping up

for five minutes of fame

like a phoenix, these words

will arise from the page

i’ll practice

and work on my lyrical flaws

and pray i can master that awkward

pause