A petite pink haired pixie of a gal got off her beat up stolen
bicycle blowing face sized bubbles with her gum and smiled
at the “Help Wanted” sign posted in the front window of the
local bar, a nondescript place where the hangers on outnumbered
the staff. You could tell by the vacant look in their eyes that
no matter how many drinks they had that their stories would
remain the same unless someone dared to dream big and give
them an opportunity for their voices to be heard. As things
looked now, the wee sprite peering in through the window with
the ridge of freckles across the bridge of her nose was the
answer to their prayers. As she approached the bar, the manager
noticed she was wearing a pink ballet slipper on her left foot
and a black high topped tennis shoe on the right. She wore a
faded black turtle neck shirt and a pair of ragged denim shorts.
A variety of cartoon band-aids decorated her fingers and
knees. In a voice that sounded like a cocktail of puberty and
cigarettes she said she was here for the job and she took it
and wore it like a badge of honor. Every night she would show
up at 9 pm on the dot and watch as the regulars stared at the
scraps of paper and pens that now came with their drinks and
asked them to jot down a word or a sentence about what was
on their mind. At closing time she would collect the notes and
put them in her locker. Week after week she continued this
process until one night in December there was a new sign in the
window that advertised an “Open Mic Night”for poets. Well
she knew then what she was going to do. She took those scraps
of paper that she had been collecting home and put together a
poem, a killer poem of love and loss, laughter and tears, names
and numbers and lines of deep thoughts. When it was her turn
to read that night she stood under the lights and gave each of
those regulars a voice. She used their words to tell their stories
and gave them back hope. Soon all the bars followed suit and
words were gathered from cocktail napkins, bathroom walls,
dollar bills and all those little scraps of paper. Pink books of
poetry appeared as a choice on the menu and poems became
the new soup du jour. Poetry had never tasted so good.
Karen A VandenBos was born on a warm July morn in Kalamazoo, MI.
She has a PhD in Holistic Health where a course in shamanism taught
her to travel between two worlds. She can be found unleashing her vivid
imagination in two writing groups. A two times Best of the Net nominee,
her writing has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Moss Piglet,
Feed the Holy, The Rye Whiskey Review and others.
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