Kona Poems

I also dabbled in writing poetry. A local group held weekly readings in a small coffee shop. They called their group “Kona Poems.” I’d taken a college course on Geoffery Chaucer and his hilarious (and, some would say, deeply religious) Canterbury Tales. I decided to go and try my skills with the locals.

The venue was in a mixed residential/commercial section of Roquefort. I parked on the street in front of a small home and walked across the street and a block over to the coffee shop. A few people stood outside, talking and smoking. I opened the door, walked in, and took a seat at the first empty table. A poet stood at a podium on a small stage and read his stuff, in competition with the occasional noise of the coffee steamer.

The group leader was a retired school psychologist I’ll call Peter Piaget. He had a little book of his poetry published, and he also ran a quarterly literary review titled Hazardous Waste or something. He would make a list of readers, and generally called people up in order, although he would slip in his favorites whenever he wanted, and also kept an eye out for New Readers.

On this night I, of course, was the New Reader. He picked me out pretty quick and asked if I’d like to sign up to read tonight. Yes, I did. Before long he called me to be the next reader.

“Next we have a New Reader! Please welcome Justin Marlin!”

Light applause from the spares crowd of 15 or so attendees, and I approached the podium. I read 2 or 3, including “Second Hand Smoke” and this Spell Checker poem. There’s a saying that by a certain age, everyone has a few poems in them. I say everyone should have a spell-checker/autocorrect poem.

Spelling Test 

A diver corrals a piece of coral. 

A speaker is oral; a listener aural. 

A young woman drinks a beer, loosens up, bares her breast 

A rabbit bears young and feathers her nest 

with hair ripped from here- the center of her chest. 

Hear me, you two, and you, too: 

to tomorrow’s spelling test goes fifteen percent! 

And just because you may have passed in the past, 

don’t think yourselves heroes or heroines. 

I hope your study methods are good ones. 

One of you someday will discover the next methadone. 

Or some other beneficial thing, if you learn how to think. 

Now take this to heart: study hard! Do your part! 

Contribute to the world as it whirls ’round the sun. 

Mother Earth expects work from her daughters and sons.