I tap-danced through the minefield of a poet’s club in Maine,

my warts ‘n all recital knocked ‘em dead,

two sisters asked why I had used a multiple refrain,

the three of us then spent a week in bed.

In Denver I was booed, they wanted cowboy songs all night,

no time for epic tales of beasts and men,

a lady in the second row took pity on my plight,

her back-seat acrobatics? Ten from ten.

The San Francisco sweetie-pies decided I was great,

they hung on every word and cheered each verse,

I broke a thousand hearts when I declared that I was straight,

then flew off to Hawaii with a nurse.

In New Orleans I tried my brand of street-wise haiku punk,

a sultry blonde, the only one who smiled,

we read each other Tennyson, got slowly shit-faced drunk,

I took her home and both of us went wild.

One moonlit night in Montreal I read my “Ode to Life”

and every single eye was soaking wet,

one lady howled to hear about my dog and Daddy’s knife,

that’s how I came to move in with Claudette.

It lasted almost seven weeks, and then I hit the road,

the joy of tantric sex can be a curse,

she needed love, not limericks, I was just an episode,

I headed south and wrote some heavy verse.

Just east of Phoenix, high on wine, I joined a Hopi tribe,

they didn’t seem to care that I was white,

I soon became a sort of unofficial village scribe,

the Chief was cool and treated me all right.

So now I read my poems for the tourists who come by,

I sit outside my tepee in the sun,

they throw me coins, and every now and then I catch an eye,

another daughter searching for some fun.

I’ve seen the worst of poetry, and felt rejection’s vice,

been lashed by would-be critic rubbernecks,

I wrote and I recited, till I found my Paradise:

the perfect blend of poetry and sex.