refugees of the word

back in nineties i used to hang out at the telecafe with a poet friend who called himself "Sea Forrest." i think they even had an open mic there once. a cheap hang, both the cafe & my friend, who was a virtuoso of waiting, would wait for hours even, and like me, would walk anywhere & everywhere, and then sit at simple metal tables, a telephone on each one, as impossible notes played at industrial sound levels above our opened notebooks, spiral bound like the telephones, daring us to write freely below the noise.