Poetry has finally paid off

I started my musical career as a spoken word artist. I’ve always enjoyed the art of poetry, but generally frowned on it in a competitive sense (except a few times when wants of the stomach or wallet have surfaced, which as an artist, has been often). I’ve had the great fortune of winning a few competitions in my day, but the prize has never been the bullseye of my aim. For instance, for the first "poetry slam" I ever won, I was rewarded with a hard cover copy of Jewel’s poetry book. That’s right, Jewel, the 90s pop artist whose hits may have escaped my radar, but penetrated the ears of many millions. I’m not sure that there has ever been anything in print I wanted to read less than Jewel’s poetic ramblings. I’d rather let my eyes feast on calculus textbooks, encyclopedias (remember those) or the screenplay to literally any Vin Diesel movie before indulging in Jewel’s take on a sestina. After dropping my winnings off at the local Goodwill, my next victory was in Flagstaff Arizona. I took home second prize which was a large shelf fungus, hand illustrated by some hippie with some finger paints. The giant rock hard mushroom was painted with a scenic vista, a turkey vulture sitting on a white rock beneath blue Arizona skies, perhaps the hippie artist had chewed some of the mushroom off to add a hint of abstractness. I didn’t know exactly what to do with that one, I couldn’t throw it away cause someone put some time into it, but it didn’t match my Sanford and Son décor so I gave it to someone for their birthday. The last time I won (before this weeks exciting victory) was at a large competition up in Encinitas. First place was $500 bucks, second place was 30 bucks in change in a KFC bucket. Despite the two standing ovations and what seemed like a locked victory, I lost to an elderly woman who read a poem about sex. She was old, in fact, she may have invented sex, and the shock of an old lady talkin bout sex catapulted her into the $500 prize and me to a mere memory fast fading. I had already promised my victory winnings to my date in the form of Lobster so my $30 was spoken for. It was as if the world had forgotten the Golden Girls' Blanch Devereaux had already been both old and sexual, what of Mona from Who's the Boss? But alas, second place is the first loser and I stepped down from competitive poetry for several years. This was until last week, when prompted by Joanie Mendenhall to submit a haiku into a facebook competition for a tattoo. It was fierce competition and one of the haikus was about a mother’s love for her unborn child. I was pretty certain I’d get crushed by that unborn kiddo, I even thought to write a haiku about some starving children or drowning puppies or something of emotive significance, but instead I went with the following

the light of onyx eyes
In silences a city
Bathed in ebony

Guess who’s getting a tattoo