In which my words inspire a great poet.......

I love everything written by local performance poet Harry Mishkin; it's not just the amazing way his mind works, but it's his voice... when this former radio host talks - I listen!

So when he showed me this piece he'd written after a heady and intense conversation with me, I said "GIMME IT!"

And here it is.........

“I like Swiss cheese,” she said as I reached for a cracker and a savory slice.  A cue for conversation from the organizer of this gathering of local literati.   If I was as sharp as the cheese, I would have offered her my snack.  But her cue might as well have been a metaphor for my riddled attention span. Gazing at the yellow succulence as I guided it towards my mouth, I fell through one of its holes.

I could still see our vibrant hostess as I hurtled through a tunnel of hope for arriving at the shore of inspiration, anchored only by the stories, offered  before the break in festivities, on writing and of appreciation for one of its chief practitioners, the focus of this celebration.

“I like revelations,” I responded from some distance beyond the audible spectrum. 

“I like epiphanies!” I shouted to my private universe

As I unraveled the lines of reverie and revelation cast into the crowd during this celebration of the art and artifact of writing, my frenzied craving for my own material blocked out all external sight and sounds.  Until an explosion of taste opened my ears to the crunch of the cracker that was in my hand.

“I don’t just like Swiss cheese, I love it,” I told her.  And thanks for inviting me.