Poets Are Present: Regie Cabico

Poets are Present is a poetry residency in conjunction with David Ives’s adaptation of The Metromaniacs. As part of this unique theatre/poetry exchange, the Shakespeare Theatre Company is proud to host more than 30 D.C.-area poets in the theatre’s lobby. Throughout the run, we will share with you the poems that this residency inspired our guests to write. Visit our Poets are Present page to see a list of upcoming poets.

Regie Cabico is the first Asian American poet to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and has appeared on 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and NPR’s Snap Judgement. He received three NY Innovative Theater Award nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which won the 2006 Award for Best Performance Art Production. With Don Mike Mendoza, he also curates and co-hosts La Ti Do: A Weekly Cabaret & Spoken Word Series.

http://latidodc.wix.com/latidodc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU3p93bscgA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdxGbj4aTZA

 

 

 

A METROMANIACAL UNREQUITED ECSTASY COMPOSED
AS AN EFFABLE ELEGY

By Regie Cabico

|   Forgive me Muse, Me
|        Cracked, Thwacked,

|     Chanting, Mecca Lecca
|  Hi Mecca Hiney Ho

|       Concocting
|  Chockfull of odes like

|  A Maniac, Maniac, A
|      Metrosexual Maniac

|     On the flo’
|  Writing rhymes

|       Like I never
|     Wrote from pho

|  Fo’ Lent I’ve given up
|      Free Verse

|     Fo’ crimey rhymes,
|  I’m so averse to

|        You Bone & Brine
|  You turkey lurkey me

|  Let’s chew edible flowers
|       & ribbons under

|       The old oak tree
|  -& make beef jerky-

|  Oh pummel & pull my
|         Buttermilk jowls

|   I’m your biscuit enjambments
|       & fried Filipino fowl

|        I’m a Wishbone of Vinegar
|  Caressing Cupid’s Cinders.

|  I’m a diabetic Splenda
|      Behold my swelling spleen

|  O for a Muse of fire, of Scruff,
|  I plinkety plink the lobby

|      lyre clean, while I pluck
|  & apply good ole’

|  Raven-eyed Maybeline,
|  I’m a Starfish hook,

|  a riff by Prince, a dove crying
|      a salty Lenten blues,

|  a Cymbeline shingle to you,
|  My singular walkie talkie

|   My lentil Jabberwocky,
|      My Purple Pie Man Suave

|  Come fetch my shimmy
|           Shimmy shoes