m. s. sanders is a poet, performer, freelance writer, actor, graphic designer and artist who has been a featured poet at over 100 venues and events including Artscape, The Martin Luther King Memorial Library, The Maryland Institute College of Art and the WHFS Festival at RFK Stadium. He has hosted, organized and promoted literally hundreds of literary and multimedia events and garnered two Baltimore's Best awards from the City Paper for his literary events and publications. He was awarded first prize in the Baltimore City Paper’s statewide 8th Annual Poetry Contest and in 2000, was honored with an individual artist grant for poetry by the Maryland State Arts Council. He has acted in numerous commercials, shorts and music videos and has had lead and supporting roles in several feature films including, “7th Day” (Dire Wit Films), “One Down” (Wood Room Motion Pictures), “Generation Z” (Riot Releasing) and “Ghoul Society” (Red Suede Productions). He is currently a contributing writer to the internationally syndicated, multiple Emmy and Telly award-winning
Spring 2011
Table of Contents - Vol. VII, No. 1
m.s. sanders
The poets!
The POETS!
THE POETS ARE ON THEIR WAY!
In a clattering VW bus
reeking of cigarettes
and convenience store cheese!
The ragged upholstery
steeped with cultivated defeat!
The oil-burning harbinger
of their marvelous indifference!
Preserved in the most fashionably
unfashionable state of decay
by their premeditated
casual maintenance!
Yes, the poets!
The POETS!
THE POETS WILL SOON ARRIVE!
With their greasy, dog-eared chapbooks
and coffee-ringed, loose-leaf rants!
With their significant ashtray faces
and student union breath!
With their thrift store philosophy
and barroom intellects!
Their immaculate, hunched resignation
and erudite, monastic belches!
To deliver us from our own pretense
and wipe away the capital “I”!
Oh, the poets!
The POETS!
THE POETS ARE ALMOST HERE!
With their vinegar glances
and timorous smirks!
With their kitchen table haircuts
and cryptic inside jokes!
And we shall scramble
to touch the hem
of their hand-me-down underwear
so that we too may be cleansed
of our literary blindness!
The poets!
The POETS!
THE POETS ARE ON THEIR WAY!
Like acid rain.
Like a storm front of cold shoulders.
Like an eviction notice from contentment.
The poets.
Yes, the poets.
The poets are inevitably
irrevocably on their way.
Let us go
before they find us.
© m. s. sanders
