MIC versus MIKE

The Poetz.com NYC calendar & e-newsletter is seeking advice "on a crucial, irksome, endless, so-far-answerless question: is it Open Mike? or Open Mic?" Send your answers IN VERSE to mikez@poetz.com, & if your reply is the best or the funniest, it'll be published next month & you'll be known forever as "the poet who solved the mystery of the open mi...'s." And here are local submissions… send us more. It's over, people, and this one won! Fame only, no fortune.

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Oh My Mi__…

Mic, mike, Michael, microphone;
Through you, we poets rant and moan.
Through feedback, buzzing, and blown fuses
We speak our verse and praise the Muses.

How shall we spell thee? Count the ways;
Mic's odd, and mike on even days.
Does spelling change for gays or dykes?
Do lesbians have open mykes?

It's said that "mike" is chauvinist
and "mic" on the gender-neutral list.
I can't help feel that the word "mic"
Should be pronounced like "prick" or "dick."

One end's big, and one end's little;
Split the difference up the middle:
Please 'em all with this device:
The new, official word's spelt mice.

Monger peace throughout the nation;
Choose a new abbreviation!
There's "cro" (or crow: another choice)
Or "fo" through which to speak your voice.

I'm so sorry: "phone" is taken;
Coin a word of your own makin'!
Fortissimant? Stentorifier?
Verbechoate to your heart's desire!

At venues for all or alcoholics,
Let's have more open Whatchamacallits!
More poetry and less moronics:
Let's teach kids "Hooked on Microphonics."

The greener grass of common sense
I find on this side of the fence:
Although it claims to sound alike,
Mic is icky; I like MIKE!

© FJBergmann 7/10/01