#i am known as seagull poem girl

[ryekat]

WHAT IF I WANNA READ UR SEAGULL POEM 🧍🏻‍♀️

My master piece that I wrote sleep deprived at 11pm in a hostel in Dublin about a seagull who kept trying to eat my muffin. Enjoy

An Open Letter to Seagulls

You are cute & you are loud

You remind me of my cat.

But cry all you want, my muffin

You cannot have.

Though the concept of money is foreign to you

I am not afforded that same luxury

So you’ll have to make due.

I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my dog

It’s not my fault you can’t have chocolate

You’ll have to take that up with God.

[chilled-ray]

Serving & Smiling

2/16-17/2017

My name was under Phil’s*(1)(2) on the list.

“I had you going there for a second,” my coworker was saying, “but we already had the grilled cheese incident. Hey – how’d that be for a stage name? Grilled Cheese Incident?”

The familiarity tinkled my temple and crinkled my brow. “Isn’t there a band called the String–”

He finished it with me – “Cheese Incident? Yeah. Might be conflicting.”

I was also reminded of references to Calvin’s so-called “Noodle Incident” (3), but decided on a different tine of the conversational fork. “You should perform as The Incident Formerly Known as The Sandy Koufax Bar Mitzvah Experience.” 

“Ohh, inception!” About a month ago, Phil had signed himself up as The Sandy Koufax Bar Mitzvah Experience, a name replaced the following week by Something Someone Quinceañera  Extravaganza or a Synonymous or Similar Word. He was reading regularly now, almost every week. Before he worked here, no other barista had gotten behind the microphone except perhaps to call a “testing, one-two” into it during setup. Or a sillier version, if you’re Alek**. Now, after three years of listening and pouring to and for the artists and patrons of the Open Mic, I’ve begun stepping gingerly over the freshly blazed trail and reading a handful of poems.

My Grover’s Mill debut came the second Thursday after Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize, because I couldn’t believe that not a single musician had made mention of the achievement. In succeeding weeks, another couple classic poems and striking passages tumbled from my lips, some from a Seagull reader or Norton anthology, one from VanderMeer, maybe a Lovecraft.

Most fun for me was the Italo Calvino excerpt from “In a network of lines that enlace”, because role-playing a neurotic professor meant that a panicky and stammering performance actually worked, though I hadn’t realized so consciously until partway through my reading. After the applause, I received several compliments, my favorite of which came from the dark-haired young fellow with the beard and spectacles and Johnny Cash voice: “You really captured the urgency of the piece.” Another musician took the book out of my hands and took a picture of its cover.

Last week I read an original for the first time, though it was from a prompt suggested by Phil that very night, and I stumbled – did that whole deer in the headlights thing – and read what I decided afterwards was the worst of the three poems I’d written.

Tonight, when Anker*** called my name, which was after Phil had finished reading a song in which every other word was four-lettered, I walked up to the microphone with a leather-bound notebook in one hand and a smartphone in the other. I waited for the chatter to die down before speaking.

“Would you guys like to hear something about creating a story, or about working in a coffee shop?”

In a clear majority, “Coffee shop!” came from various tables, not synchronized. I thought I heard “Story!” in Phil’s voice. I pocketed the phone, fingered the red string of the leather-bound book, and cleared my throat.

I serve dutifully

not just because it is my duty

but because I can and I do it well

and people appreciate it

and I enjoy that.

I enjoy hearing you tell me

that I make such good drinks

or how pretty my smile is.

Realistically, those are two of the best compliments a person can pay or receive.

It’s lovely when people comment on

how it’s nice to see a smiling face

or that they come here for the service.

When you ask me where I got my dimples,

I flash them again [insert flirtatious smile]

and say they’re one of the many things my mother gave me.

(It sounds sweet. My roommate thinks

I’ve nailed the good-girl-next-door act.)

But – sometimes there’s another question.

“How are you always so cheerful?

“Are you a generally happy person, or

is it part of the job?

“Why are you always smiling?”

I’ll make a joke about how much my parents spent on braces,

or say,

“Ah, it’s in the job description!”

or I may respond with,

“We have such good customers!” –

which [deliver charmingly to audience] isn’t a lie –  

or I’ll remark on how wondrous life is,

that it’s full of things to smile about,

that every moment should be embraced – 

[wince]

or –

feed you whatever.

But the truth – ? –

I’ll probably never tell.

[exit]

I walked back behind the counter.

“We could put that on the website,” said Boss.

* Names have been changed to protect the practice of creative liberties. And identities. Also, see footnotes 1 and 2.

** Formed from true middle and last names. Probably temporary.

*** This name is not changed because it is already a pseudonym the musician host has given himself. Perhaps I will change it down the line for consistency’s sake, and to carry out the liberties cited in Asterisk One.

(1) What do you call the fictional name of a character based on a probably real person? Pseudonym? Alias? Supporting characters, not the protagonist or writer.

(2) Other possible names for this particular human/character/persona/player: Hugh, Emmett, others. It should have meaning that makes sense for what this person embodies, and not be the kind of name that evokes an idea too far from the interpretations the writer intends to be read from the character. This goes for all naming, now; I am referring to future and past creatures, fictional or flesh. A name, a label, should convey an essence and be interesting but not too distracting. “Phil” means horse-lover, which seemed appropriate for someone who is looking forward to being drawn as a centaur; moreover, he seems closer to a Phil than to any of the other brainstormed pseudonyms (a term I’m beginning to think may be the most accurate answer to the question posed in footnote 1.)

(3) A Watterson allusion, obviously. I say Calvin and not Calvin and Hobbes because we don’t know how involved the tiger might have been. Part of the reason I chose not to mention this Incident is because so little is known about it.