open-mic poetry night

halfway into the night,
and in the middle of
a poem i was reading,
this guy sitting up front
got a call on his cell phone.

he answered it and
proceeded to have a rather
heated conversation
with the caller.

at first this pissed me off,
but i soon realized that
what this guy was
saying was ten times more
entertaining and
vastly more poetic
than the shit i was
spewing, so i stopped reading.

i stopped reading in the
middle of a particularly dull
stanza and held the
microphone up to the cell phone.

the guy continued talking
and the crowd suddenly
became riveted.

he kept on talking
loudly, making erratic gestures,
using bold language;
and i kept on holding the
microphone to him.

when he was finished the
crowd erupted and i
gallantly walked out from
under the spotlight into
the windstorm of applause.

it was my best
reading ever.

-published in Umbriate