This Is Not An Open Mike

This is a celebration
A carnival ride through the night
Don't waste yr time and tickets waiting on line for the big ride
Three hours for a three-minute
splash of the dizzies
The parachute jump when bumper cars and
Ferris wheels are screaming out yr name
When cotton candy vendors hold rights to
a mystery date
Hell, take anything from the top shelf
Everyone's a winner!

This is not an open mike
This is a bordello rented from yr
secret dreams
A Pocket Book fantasy of what could be with Poe and Toulouse Lautrec at the beck
and call of the Oscar Wilde
Each act a room of possibilities
Turn yr sorry songs into harlots and fire-eaters

Get out yr bullwhip and beat yr superego, parent-pleasing soul into a frenzy of dropped chords, false bridges

and sly mistakes

This is not an open mike
I am not on a number
You are not a number
This club has long ago
severed its tether
and slipped into the ether
We are in Dorothy's house
spinning madly towards Oz
Laws of gravity have been
replaced with laws of levity
There is no job
no cubicle
no sitcom
no on-line
no reality
for you to return to

Time is flying

This is not an open mike
You are sitting next to
a breathing human being
Miles of arteries
and a heart
red and juicy
pumping blood
filled with oxygenated cells
Bioelectricity shooting
at the speed of thought
Storehouses of billions of moments
Each one a poem
of God and love
That is why you are singing
That is why you are going to get on stage
This is not an open mike
This is your life!