Goodness Is That The Time??

Welcome back! I can't remember the last time we embarked upon an Underground Literary Adventure together! Fortunately we had the Torino Olympics to focus on, and what glorious games they were! Don't know about you, but my most memorable Olympic moments this time around included heavily hyped skier Bode Miller's string of pathetic failures. Worst of all, the guy doesn't even realize that A) He sucks B) He's an embarrassment to his country C) He's a pampered dumbass who'd be better off competing in the SPECIAL Olympics.

Citizens of the Adventures Blognut Gallery, we must learn from Bode Miller's terrible example. Do we want to veer off course in a haze of hungover apathy, or do we want to ski arm in arm down the highest peaks of literature? Then ski up again, just to prove we can? Oh slalom rapture!

Here to get us back in our groove is unhyped poet Cynthia Ruth Lewis. Her first poem, Saving Face, has nothing to do with Bode Miller, nor does the first line of her second poem, which reads, "Who the fuck are you to snub me?" Who the fuck, indeed!

Two Poems from Cynthia Ruth Lewis:

SAVING FACE

I never admit I'm a writer--
I don't like to refer to myself
as a "poet"

not that I'm ashamed, mind you,
it's just that whenever I tried
to explain to the everyday idiot
that I write--
and underground poetry, at that--
they never got it

as soon as they found out
I had no intention or interest
in writing the next 'Great American Novel,'
they plastered that uncertain,
polite grin on their face
and nodded as if they understood,
while secretly wondering how to
gracefully steer the conversation
back towards safe and mundane topics
like the weather, or the latest hit movie

so that's why I never confess my passion
for the underground word
to the masses--
I keep it to myself

just like the sweet, sweet thought
of obliterating all those brain-washed clones
from this overly smug and plastic society


UNDERGROUND POETS ARE PEOPLE, TOO

Who the fuck are you to snub me?
We're both writers--
just because you lost your gag reflex
to get your book on the bestseller list
is no reason to look down your nose at me

I write from the gut; I don't shit words out,
and I don't take them for granted
as you seem to do--

the last 'original' thought you had,
you probably left floating in the bowl this morning,
so get your nose out of the air
and stop acting like you just smelled
the essence of your latest plot

I may not be a world-famous writer,
but at least I have a good handful of loyal fans
instead of the entire world eating shit
out of my palm

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Cynthia Ruth Lewis has been published in various print mags in the past, but is now spreading her sickness through online zines. It is her aim to psychologically corrode each and every person on the planet, poem by poem. If she dies first, at least she will have gone down trying.

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