Open mic at Palacio's

Shades of Bulwer-Lytton. Tonight we're doing the dark and stormy, with torrents of rain and constant sky-splitting lightning. It began as I left Palacio's Bar in Mesilla, site of the monthly open mic readings and performances. It was my first time there. The Carta Blanca was ice-cold, the crowd was friendly, and the popcorn was free. I was up for a night like this.

I read from Getting Lucky to an audience of two dozen; most read poetry, one played a three-piece Indian flute, another acted out a one-man skit. A guy from El Paso read some cleverly-rhymed, fast-paced gibberish. He teaches English and Philosophy at a community college and claimed he's an avowed Marxist. He used to think all rich people should be shot, he says, but now wants them to have the option of repenting or committing suicide. I smiled, thinking him a harmless twit but keeping said opinion to myself.

Pamela was one of the better poets of the evening. She prefaced her work by telling the audience that the poems she planned to read were about her ex-husband. In one poem, she said his primary means of communicating with her was punching her in the jaw. Then she described putting a gun to his temple while he slept but not pulling the trigger.

Whew.

In the course of the evening, the fellow sitting next to me kept picking up my book and putting it down, making me think he'd buy it. Alas, no. I made no more money than the poets tonight, but never mind—I'll be back.