This piece was,
under no circumstances,
in no conceivable way,
undebatably,
inexorably,
an absolutely not written
during a spoken word set
by horror poet Oliver Baer.

There is no reason
– none at all –
to suspect that,
while the poet recited his deathless lines,
I was huddled in the back,
pad in hand,
ignoring his art
and scratching out my own.

This piece was written
on some other occasion
with no witnesses around
to deny my claims.
It was not composed
during any other performance
by any other artist
and, as such,
deserves no cowriter credit
to anyone else under the sun
no matter what he may claim.

This poem
was not created
in front of Oliver Baer
when I should have been paying attention to what he was doing.
This is not the case
for the next poem…