A Smart Kid I Once Knew - Not Funny Comedy, Stayed Alive In Poetry

I have always been curious about people from Kurdistan I wonder why they are called kurds I wonder when the kurds would become keese Just like curd becomes cheese I wonder if birds are called “birds” because they come from “Birdistan”….. Okay, that kurd-bird joke one time never went down well One audience I entertained transitioned from swelling to swearing The agitated audience looked at each other, left and right The bird joke got me pelted and unhired, now I'm a fly-by-night comic The joke was inspired by a 12 year kid I once knew, nicknamed “Talk shop” He used to hang around the market stands and chatted nonstop The lad knew almost all of the countries with syllables ending with “–stan” He bragged about Kazakhstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, with the “stans” he was never done The smart-****’s Turkistan questions hit me like a slap Unrelentingly he tested me to spot Manhattan on the map I totally lost my geography to the kids embarrassing pressure The kid burst into a belly laugh when my finger hovered over Asia In trying to change the subject, I asked him about the story of Tristan I was zipped into silence when he told me stick to geography and not romance I asked the kid what his real name was, and how he got an extra memory chip He said if he taught me how, the conversation would flip And then he revealed what his real name was with a “My name is Stan, duh!” A felt relieved, as adult dumbness left my shoulder I bet you would know every country and its geographical location If it was made up of some weird syllables sneaking up on your name The cocky kid asked me to test him on anything I went spiritual, a subject the kid probably had no grip on I asked him why we confess to a priest, if God can directly hear us pray He said “so that we can have an eye witness on judgment day” I tried to get rid of the boy by pretending to be bored But I let the boy stay, when he told me that I would miss him one day when I get old