Got butterbeer?

Cheers! And speaking of cheers, Darlyn and I ventured to New Smyrna yesterday for the 7th Annual Wham Bam Poetry Slam -- a crazy-good event put on by the great folks at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Fifteen poets, three judges, no preparation, and five minutes to compose an original piece, based on a prompt drawn from a brandy snifter. Three rounds, and cash prizes. Darlyn had been asked to judge this year. I was a tag-along, who decided, at the last minute, to sign up and compete. What fun! The event was conducted in three rounds, with us writing and performing each piece before continuing to the next round. Each performance was scored, and three winners were selected based on total combined score. This year's prompts were: "Turning the tide," "That's money," and, "Washing my hands."

Here's my favorite, of the three I wrote:

Bard

Washing my hands

I turn and churn the bar of soap

Slip, sloppy suds

And I wonder

As the bar erodes

How much of that is soap

And how much is me

Swirling and gurgling down the drain

10 times a day

for 48 years

365 days each

plus 12 leaps

There must be a whole me down there

collected in the bend

And I wonder what my doppleganger would be like

If I were to crack open the works

And gather me up

All those soapy bits

And squeeze them together

Into a new clean and shiny person

99 and 44/100ths percent pure

Bar Brad

I'll call him Bard.

The good stuff:

k.d. lang singing about the big-boned gal

poetry under pressure

cardinals dogfighting in the crape myrtle

Atlantic Center for the Arts

Bonfires at biker karaoke bars on U.S. 1.

crazy, quirky poets getting their muse on

tiny, cozy cabins amid the palmetto and cabbage palm

deer on the swale

dressing up - for a radio show . . .

biscuits and gravy at It's All Good, New Smyrna.