On Spoken Word Poets I watch almost never Spoken word poets And slams And am mostly Bored And Unmoved. It seems so fake To me. More like actors Reading lines and clowns playing for laughs. The roar of the crowd Seems important to them If only sometimes Measured in claps. Bukowski came to Hate poetry Readings and later Denounced them As phony. The types of people Who show up for that Kind of thing Make my eyes roll Backwards in my head. Dread You could say. Poetry to me is Mostly visual. The architecture Of the poem. The beauty of the Written word. When poetry is only spoken So much is lost In the air. So I'm not going To try to stop Those who like Slams from going. But if you look You'll never See me In the Audience.