The bullet knew his middle name.
He awoke, not remembering his first.

For four days, the best of the best spewed the most gut-wrenching and heart-clenching poetry LA has heard in a while.

SlamCharlotte Takes the Title as Champion at the First Annual InkSlam Poetry Festival
Move over New York City, Los Angeles is the new home of slam poetry. Every Tuesday night for the past 11 years, Greenway Court Theatre has been the home of the immensely popular Da’ Poetry Lounge, which has become the nation’s largest ongoing, open mic spoken word event. The soul-searching, quick-talking, and groove-loving regulars of the series have been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, won Tony Awards, and have been recognized as some of the country’s finest spoken …

When they left, when they trotted off to play war
They were fresh, from some mid-west high school,
Athletic letterman’s jackets and class rings
they love to sing songs their father sung when they were young
when they were their age, when they were fresh
Classic melodies, timeless harmonies
Sung off key by 4 South Dakota boys in a poorly armored Humvee
45 mph down a dusty Baghdad street
the words removed them briefly from the anxiety, the intensity
the propensity of bullets and bombs gravitating towards American soldiers
the tune soldiers on from cautious voices

In a lorikeet cave
motions exist of disintegrated swans
in a translocated lake
brimming with harvested poisons
sealed by corruptive post-mortems