There Are No Mosquitoes In Albuquerque!

Blue skies, warm, dry air
Nationals rocked
and I wish you were there
every where you turned poetic words flowed
over 75 teams competing
who would win no one could know!
Oh My Deity!
Amazing! 75 Teams,
poetry everywhere!
They were all so kind and considerate...Up until the end but I'll get into that later.
The bouts were amazing. I was almost a sacrificial poet for Atlanta's bout until they found out I was from Atlanta. I told them I was from Earth, then John said hey and gave me a hug.
Then, as a volunteer mind you ,I was fired from that position,
and fired from time keeping because I was from Atlanta,
and again fired from score keeping because I was from Atlanta.
The idiot who fired the school teacher, who can add thank you very much, took on drunk score keepers. Poor Karen G she didn't lose her temper, but the word asshole came up when we recapped the evening.
The team from Del Ray had an incredible group peace that rocked! I was a judge for their bout and damn! And Hawaii Oh My Damn, they did a piece called The Americans Are Coming! Breathtaking and in your face!
They had several smaller readings ( still in front of anywhere from 50 the 150 folks) that I attended. My performance were very well received and even leaving for the air port folks were telling me how much they loved the Butterfly piece. I think it's a hit, I took it on the road and they liked it! They had Queer readings, African American readings, Grief and Remembrance, Geek Slam , and World Peace readings! There were many others that I didn't qualify for like, Hispanic Reading, Idigenous, and Asian to name a few! Amazing!!!!!!!!
ABQ won the Nationals.
In the runnings was, Fort Worth, Hollywood, Charlotte and ABQ.
Everybody was awesome.
The Guy from Hollywood did a piece where he took a line from every poet he performed with and every poem performed that night and worked it into this masterpiece, with the ending line " I may not be the best poet, but I am the best Listener!"
Incredible!
There was boooooing in the audience during the show.
I heard a lot of it and some was from Locals the others however were from other teams.
Now, In my opinion when you make anything a kinda spectator sport that kind of thing is par for the course. When Charlotte went to get their second place trophy, one of the poets took it upon herself to reprimand all of ABQ saying that they needed to teach their people some home training, because it was ABQ who was boooing the other poets. Mind you ABQ Team is on the stage waiting to get their first place. She ruined it for them in my opinion. Then to further protest she proceeded to take this completely defensive stand while one of ABQ youngest poets ( who was not allowed to compete) did her piece. She refused to leave the stage, when they finally got her off she yelled and screamed at people back stage, interrupting ABQ'S poet and their win in my opinion.
It all came out like sour grapes and ego.
My momma has always said," you can't walk up into someone else's house and tell them how to raise their children." It was embarrassing, everything was all good and great, the town was incredibly nice and the police looked the other way on so much illegal shit. She fucked up everybody's mood. The head organizer who worked his ass off and probably kissed a lot of ass had to apologize for her outburst. It was a truly fucked up ending to a beautiful thing!
Next year, I am so going to be there! And compete and manage to not be a bitch about anything so's I don't ruin it for others.

The whole time I was their not one mosquito, but those bastards were waiting for me at the airport!