(PART 1)
There's this guy named Hep Cat.
He wears a little cap.
He likes to sit in coffeehouses
writing lots of crap.
He sports a little goatee
and dresses all in black.
People say hello to him
but he never answers back.
He smokes nasty Galois cigarettes
and blows it all around.
He loves to bug the pink lung crowd
as they complain and cough and frown.
If someone dares confront him
about the awful stench,
He feigns to spit on their shoes
and shouts foul words in French.
I couldn't stand his rudeness
but I'm not much for fighting
so I snuck behind him stealthily
to see what he was writing.
He looked so wise and worldly
from across the smoky den
but when I looked real close, I saw
he was writing "the" over and over again.
(Part 2)
I was on my way in to the coffeehouse,
fixin' to grab a quick bite
when I noticed a sign in the window
which read, "Poetry reading tonight."
Now, I consider myself quite a novice
cuz my poems often tend to rhyme.
The beatniks and the free verse crowd
would prefer it if I were a mime.
I guess I'm just old-fashioned.
Some folks think I'm a little dense
for thinking a poem should have meter
and make some kind of logical sense.
I really just don't understand it
for if the critics' charges are true,
Shakespeare, Longfellow and Dickinson
were a bunch of idiots, too.
I gathered up all of my courage
and added my name to the list
but planned to go on real late
when everyone would be good and pissed.
That night, it was standing room only.
I held all my poems in my lap
waiting for my turn to read
as the MC delivered his rap.
The poets were diverse and interesting.
No two were alike at all.
An old man read a poem about kinky sex
and a biker read, "Ode To My Doll."
A wild-eyed environmentalist
convinced me we all were doomed.
An ex-con described how he'd almost gone mad
until a rose in his cell had bloomed.
A lawyer read one that brought tears to my eyes,
recalling his Peace Corps days
and how his heart had grown steadily empty
building a beautiful, golden cage.
The night was in full swing.
They'd all set an expansive tone
when a guy came in through the alley door
and stood in the shadows alone.
He looked around the room with rancor
as if he wished we all were dead
and a storm of contempt and hostility
seemed to swirl above his head.
Then the MC called my name
so I stepped into the light
and read a couple of rhymers.
They were the first ones of the night.
I noticed a nice, old couple
breathe a deep sigh of relief,
and I saw the hipsters roll their eyes,
hoping that I would be brief.
When I finished, I got a nice round of applause
and, spent, returned to my chair.
Then the MC said, "Thank you, Mark.
Now, is there a 'Hep Cat' anywhere?"
He was wearing his usual uniform,
dressed in black from head to toe.
A turtleneck and a French beret
worn with a rakish slant, just so.
As I heard his name, I remembered.
I knew that I'd seen him before.
He was the guy that no one could stand.
A first-rate, Grade-A, crashing bore.
He always seemed to go out of his way
to be sullen, obnoxious and rude
and anytime he walked into the place,
he never failed to bring down the mood.
I shouldn't have but I'd spied on him
a couple of months before.
He looked like he was writing a novel
but it was only "the", nothing more.
I had kept the discovery secret
of the hideous pretense I had found.
He'd worked so hard building his image,
I couldn't bear to tear it down.
"God love him," I thought. "The poor guy.
He's just too tightly wound.
Who am I to judge if he wants to hide
in some cheap disguise he found?"
He skulked slowly up to the stage
with his usual smirking frown
but instead of beginning, he waited
for the murmuring to die down.
I thought, "This guy is so arrogant.
He's really a sight to behold.
For someone who writes nothing but "the",
he sure is incredibly bold.”
Then I thought that maybe the "the" incident
was something I misunderstood.
Maybe it was some abstract exercise
and I was condemning him more than I should.
So I opened my mind, sat very still,
and decided to give him a chance.
After all, many geniuses often seemed mad
to those who judged by a cursory glance.
I even managed somehow to ignore
the bitter, seething contempt
He obviously felt for his audience.
No one from his ire was exempt.
Now I'm not exactly Sinatra
but this guy didn't have a clue
about how to win the heart of a crowd.
He did everything but throw his own poo.
And though I struggled and strained to follow,
his poems just made no sense at all.
Disjointed fragments of insane dreams.
The King's English mangled and mauled.
An old expression came to mind,
one that really seemed to fit.
"If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance,
then baffle 'em with bullshit."
I finally had to give up in despair
but Hep Cat, he droned on and on.
Something about "flaming cantaloupes"
and a "door knob's evil spawn".
See what I mean? It made no sense at all!
I guess you just had to be there.
His words made me physically nauseous.
I felt like I needed some air.
But for etiquette's sake, I toughed it out
till he finally looked up from the page.
The MC saw his chance, grabbed the mike
and said, "Okay! Next up on the stage . . ."
But Hep-Cat grabbed it right back and said,
"I better hear some applause and fast!
You people wouldn't know poetry
if it jumped up and chewed on your ass!"
The hipsters pretended they got it
and broke out in whoops and cheers.
Some people clapped out of courtesy,
others just clapped out of fear.
Though Hep Cat weighed only 130 or so
and wasn't much of a threat to the men,
everyone knows that a lunatic
can have the strength of ten.
"To hell with you all! I don't need you!"
He yelled as he stepped off the stage.
"You all can kiss my sweet, white ass!"
then he kicked over a chair in his rage.
And away he stormed through the alley door
being a melodramatic pain-in-the-ass.
"Well, that was fun!" the MC said,
"I hope he's off to anger management class!"
I was finally forced to conclude,
though it pained me to discover
first impressions are sometimes dead-on
and one CAN judge a book by its cover.
- Mark Rickerby
Author notes
Choice #9
Written October 17th, 2000
In a list
A contest entry
- 1-Day Contest - Hurry! Anything Goes! by tdmm.
410 points, ended March 28, 2005, 54 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 48 of 48
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Well....this is an exquisite story told with much detail and down to earth humour. The part one and two thing worked well and you developed Hep cat's character with great precision. You have told a wonderful story, easy to follow and kept me captivated until the end.
Unfortunately your meter/flow was out in many places, but skipping over those humpy hurdles was worth the generosity of this reead. Well done...alby
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Laughed so I my eyes teared...lol.
Okay aside from the witty lymeric quality which read to me with the rhytm of 'The Night Before Christmas', a book I read and greatly love reading to my kids and grands every year...Much of what you put here was one heck of an observation. Did this really happen? Seems like it. Though I do not rhyme et al, which above you state clearly your feelings on...I DO love reading rhymes that do not sound forced. To me this was not a forced rhyme but flowed from start to finish. No wonder this won gold. Even free-form poets can appreciate that not all 'poets' should be so...lol. I probably would have gotten up and ended up in heated battle with this fella
rose
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Your shit is funny, I just had to keep on reading I didnt want it to end
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Ha I found you at last you're the bum who was reading over my shoulder,get a life and write your own poetry and stop trying to steal mine.Fine piece Mark I have to admit i was waiting for an ending where the Hep Cat wrote fantastic rhyming poetry.But i do so like the closing stanza. Perhaps thats a way to get applause here rant and rave till the readers do. A most enjoyable read my friend.Thank you
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Very entertaining - well told and paced. I like they way the door is left open for him to "redeem" himself midway through the second part - instead, he reminds us that many stereotypes have some sort of foundation in truth. You paint him well as an unlikeable, yet pitiable character, giving the story a bit more depth than similar "this guy" fare...
-Nando- -
I've been to a couple of coffee house poetry reads. I didn't last long. My poetry was too ordinary for them, rhyme was considered faux pas. Gauche, to say the least!
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LOL! Bloody brilliant job on this one, Mark! Not only funny, but dead-on and rather familiar. Congrats on your win! Well deserved.
~G
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Ha! Good one...I think I know that guy. I loved it!
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Okay I'm scared now....this one actually made me laugh. I decided to go back and read some of your poetry that I haven't read yet....I was in the mood for a good laugh and it worked. YAY....Okay I'll shut up now. Great write though.
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I loved this! The poor Beat poet to be exposed so. I'm sure he'll write something to express his ire. It's always fun to expose frauds---as long as I'm not the one being exposed!
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Sir - Your callous rejection of flaming cantaloupes is surely a mark of your cultural ignorance.
A well-written piece worthy of Seuss as pertains to social commentary.
Long -
Man i have met this guy...
And to top it all off he doesn't bathe!
I am glad I am looking at prewrites here. I am not a coffeehouse frequenter, but these same types used to hang out in diners and truckstops soaking up "the ambience". Reality was they were soaking up the free refills ont he coffee because they didn't have a job and were sponging off someone for the cup in front of them.
Anyway I did see the humor in this. Your hepcat has been around a long time and gone thru many incarnations through the years. I am sure the Bloomsbury group was looked on in much the same way, but they actually were writing and producing.
Anyway all of that to say nice job, parts one and two.
Pops -
Thanks, Mari. I consider this a humorous poem but the main character is probably a little too sad to be funny, especially since there's probably one in every coffeehouse! lol
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It was fun reading this poem again. I laughed then and I'm laughing now, actually I'm laughing already for hours and this poem just added more laughter into tis evening
Thanks for this one and all the best in everything you do
Kisses,
Mari
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You know that guy, too?
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No one can tell a story like you, Mark, this was very amusing. I'm not one to complain about rhyme, and I'm not sure that forcing this into a regular meter would do it any good.
An aphorism that works for me is, "you can't judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a man by his friends." It appears this guy had few of them.
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Good job. A bit long, lol, but a good write never the less. thanks for entering.
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LOL
That was fun!
I wish there was an open mic nearby!
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I swear I knew Hep-Cat back in the coffeehouse day...except then he smoked cloves...hack, hack!! Love to see the established Unestablishment unestablished.
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oh man, funny funny stuff, felt like i was there, shaking my head in awe of one person's inane self-importance, you paint quite a picture, i'm glad you made this so long, the length is justified absolutely, your story telling ability is suberb, and to do it with such finesse, just rhyming away like it's the most natural thing in the world, you make it look so easy! this is a really great piece, well, two pieces, or whatever, that shows your sense of humor and your talent in a stunning light, i admire your skills, *bows humbly* good luck!
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LOL. This is great. You did an AWESOME job on the rhymes. As long as it is I was suprised to see that all the rhymes were still great, especially how it was a story and you had to fit what happened next into the rhymes. You are defently a talented writer! Thanks for sharing and good luck! ~Karli~
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Thanks, Deja Vu. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I had a great time writing it. One should never stereotype. Then again, stereotypes sometimes exist for good reason. But I guess we all wrap ourselves in one kind of image or another.
Take care,
Mark -
good
Ahahah, this made me smile, mostly because it's a damned good example of how often people really do fit sterotypes... (unfortunately). Good luck, I'm considering this for one of the top ones
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this was really funny and very brillant. i really dislike peopele like that.. you and i have almost the same style of petry.. you make it work better then i can...lol i really do like it, i laughed a whole lot....peopel like that piss me off they give poets a bad name... but oh well great great job!
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Very original
this was great! it was funny, and it kept my attention the entire time! i like freestyle poems, but in my opinion this was better than most freestyle poems i have read. I loved that quote "if you cant dazzle them with brillience, then baffle them with bullshit." Very funny. -
No, it's funny, and you manage to tell the story thoroughly and consistently. It's funny, and worth the read. It isn't to long, though given the presence of part I, you don't really need stanzas 23-24 (particularly 24).
Despite being a pretentious modernist ("NOT post-moderist!" I scream, spitting at your shoes), I'm going to agree with Goss and a couple others about meter. Mainly it's just that the metric scheme is so clear that you let it carry over difficulties. For example "but this guy didn't have a clue": the stress comes on "n't" which is pretty unatural.
Overall very good, definitely funny.
Brian -
Worth the time
I applauded it because it made me laugh and I love nothing better than to see pretentious "post-modernist" types humiliated. It needs a little editting for meter, but it gave me a bit of a lift. -
'Wordy sob'??? 'Windbag'??? O methinks NOT, my fine-feathered friend!!! What a kick! Mark! You used another favorite quote of mine...'If you can't dazzle 'em...'...just roflmao at whole scenario...I could SEE you there!!! What a hoot!!! 
...'YOU'RE A BETTER MAN THAN I, GUNGA DIN.'
I fear I would NOT have the courage, at all, to go into a slam with the intention of actually reading out loud!!!...lol...(we reclusive types are NOT known for our public-speaking acts of bravery!!!) roflmao...Oh, Mark...ya tickled my funny bone real hard!!!
I'm liking it a lot!!!...swan
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i am another who can't stand really, really long poems, as many of them are forced rhyme and not a good flow, so I was surprised, to say the least to find myself reading this longing for more-the flow and rhyme was spot on, and I really enjoyed reading it. In fact I was dissapointed to come to the end, and have ran out of words to read! Also, I really could see the scene, like all good writers can do for me. Awesome-and thanks for sharing, this get's my applause!
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I love it!
I hope that when I do submit a first on this site that it is as good for you as this was for me. -
Hey Kat,
Thanks for digging up this old one. Sorry it's an epic. I am a wordy SOB, huh? haha The truth is, I take kind of a perverse thrill in annoying people with long poems. lol I write until I'm done, and that usually takes a while, so I'm either very deep or a windbag.
Mark
Edited on Mar 24, 1:43 because ''. -
Dang Nabbit !!! Trust you to have a first poem the size of a phone directory I'll have to come back and read this when I have a week off work
Thank you for your comments on 'Poems have Feelings Too' I agree wholeheartedly about poems moving up the list on the authors page when they are viewed, would be a much better idea. One of the reasons I wrote this was that some of my early ones I really like, but now no one reads them
Kat -
Very Interesting and good write
I want to tell you I usually avoid long poems and hardly ever read them and yet I could not stop reading your poem.
It was so good and so interesting.
I was sure you were going to say this man was a great poet and won your heart and yet you saw the truth that in this case 1st impressions won out.
It is a shame, it would have been so nice if this could have been the other way around.
I found you poem so interesting and enjoyable to read. Thanks for sharing!
With chriatian Love,
Dawn -
Most of the time as I read a long poem, I pray for the end to come on every next stanza, with this one I wished it had more.
A very interesting story! Caught my attention on every and each line!
I don't rhyme, you know that, it isn't beacuse I don't like but because I'm very bad with rhyming.
The look of the 'package' can fool many people.
I know, personally a case about that.
This was fun to read Mark! I really like to start my reading day with a good laughter! Thanks!
Mari
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Thanks Eoj,
I actually write free verse myself just as often as I rhyme. (Well, almost as often. lol) I go to poetry slams once in a while and always love them. I was just playing the devil's advocate in this one a bit. Thanks for digging this old one up and commenting. It was the first one I posted when I came to AP. I look forward to checking out your work.
All the best,
Mark -
rofl, let me start by saying i am with the free verse crowd, but not to go without saying that i can write styles if needed, but dont like restrictions, and often times i dont like most form poetry, i admit that, i read it, i understand, but it never really grabs my attention ya know? but this one, hehe, loved it, mostly because i know 'that guy' you were personifying, and cant stand him, people need to be open minded an dnot beligerant, thats ignorant in itself, and arrogance, who needs that, be comfortable with who you are, most of my stuff, probably you will not like, but hey, thats your and this is me
doesnt mean we cant co-exist,a nd i applaud the fact that you tried to be open minded about it, as it is the only way to go, anyways, im done, and thank you for this classic piece of poetry
peace , Eoj -
Talk about first impressions!!! You've made a great one on me...So far, I've only read one poem...and I definitely like what I see!
I thoroughly enjoyed your poem and your rhyme. When poems flow like this one, I'll read them every time (no matter how long they are!).
Looking forward to reading more of yours!
Maureen
Edited on Jan 11, 5:15 p.m. because 'I edit everything!'. -
lol Mark... something about 'poo' that just
stands out...
Monkeys??
lolol Remind me not to go
to the L.A. Zoo... I don't want
to wear their poop.
You're a riot and I just love reading
your 'stuffs'
See youuuuuuuuuuuu!!
~Aimee
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Hi Aimee,
Glad you got a laugh out of this one. I don't know why it is but that "poo" line seems to stand out. haha It was inspired, of course, by the monkey cages at the L.A. Zoo. They are darn good shots, by the way. I even saw one masturbating once. I was going to say "spanking his monkey" but I wasn't sure what monkey's spank since they're, well, monkeys. I mean, a monkey can't spank its monkey, can it? Maybe monkeys call it "spanking your human." Ah, forget it. I don't blame them, though. If I was locked up and being gawked at by fat tourists, I'd probably do the same thing.
See ya!
Mark
Edited on Mar 13, 4:31 because ''. -
ahhhh this was a great read!
I loved the story of it.
I've seen the hep cats.. lol.. but only
on the tube. I didn't know they actually
existed
I enjoyed this write.. I laughed quite
a bit.. especially when you mentioned
the hep cat and his poo. ha ha ha
Great write!! It's no wonder you're on
my faves list Might I also add...that
this was a magnificent poem to start your
days here at AP.
Keep on writing
~Aimee
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Thank you all very much for the warm welcome to the site.
I love the way the site is put together, all the options, etc. Technology aside, though, it's the warm and friendly atmosphere that impresses me most. I know I'm going to enjoy reading and writing here immensely.
I realize this poem is a bit long. I received a threatening phone call from Homer when I finished it, worried about his record. Someday, I'll really annoy everyone and post a 75-stanza long poem called Journey to God, my musings on the afterlife. I decided to write until I was exhausted. Now, it's just exhausting to read.
By the way, the pretentious coffeehouse poet-type guy actually exists. I knew him in college. He ran with the Haight-Ashbury beat poet persona all the way until he actually became a caricature of a poet. This led to some ridicule and ostracizing by the straight (and sane) crowd. However, the more he was ostracized, the deeper his dimensia became. I don't think poems should be explained because it tends to cheapen them but in his case, I made an exception. His explanations always confused me more than the poem did, and I was always left with the suspicion that he didn't really know himself what he was trying to say. Thus my merciless depiction of him in this poem. I did not mean to offend the beat crowd as a whole and I like to think Kerouac himself might have gotten a laugh out of it.
Thanks again for all your kind words and I look forward to reading your work.
Mark AKA HappyWanderer
P.S. SilentPoet, thanks for using the "T word." I'll do my best to live up to it.
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Well now, what a grand and magnificent entrance you have made! Welcome to Allpoetry...
.so very glad you are here! I always get excited to discover a new poet with talent and YOU have talent! Very, very well written piece you offered up here! I love this! I will be very much looking forward to your next post....gonn a put you on my favorites list so I can keep an eye out for it! Thank you for sharing and I will most definitely be back! Peace and blessings to you! ~janet~
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LOL, hell of a story you wove here. Clear .. with a sharp intriguing ending, and perfect rhyme and meter to boot.
heehee .. great observation here.
Welcome to the site. -
yay!
lol this was the first time i could actually be bothered reading such a long poem all the way through, and i can tell you that is quite a compliment considering how extremely lacking my attention span is! this was very good, i had to find out how it ended. very funny in places. is there anything you dont do? humor, rhyme, entertaining, not-so-subtl e jabs at beatniks AND a moral! lol. i liked this alot. great work dude! -
Awesome poem..a little long..but awesome. I love the story and personally I love rhyming poems. Sometimes, yes, you can go by a first impression, some people are blantly unlikeable. Wonderful start to your work on the site, read more of you soon.
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Oh Mark..... this is great.......
...... I never read long poetry... obviously, by what I generally choose to write... lol..... but this was fun....... and I read the Whole Thing!!!! What a cool way to come to the site........ .. I love it.
Don -
lol
i enjoyed
though, the message is one that may upset many
sometimes, first impressions,are the only impression one could make
well done
thoroughly enjoyed!
~*~blu~*~
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