Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Poetry Freestyle: Jay-Z Is Not David Ben-Gurion


shakespeares on the corner in wife beaters
standing in front of trap houses, reciting poetry
green and white, dimes and birds,
hands on steel with hamlet dispositions
howl of cats announce the pressing of triggers
thats why ambulances live here
line breaks mean life breaks makes pen pause
wondering what houses writing can build
because words can't replace fathers
semicolons don't hold lonely mothers
so we hide behind dumpsters
because getting caught means cold summers
so i lied for my brothers
pass the can, spraying names, poetry games
ain't nothing glamorous about walking
streets, don't come equipped with rap beats
because the radio doesn't tell your story
never had a platinum necklace only rubberbands
34 white tees, 5 pair of blue jeans, can't confess
what I did for a fresh pair of kicks
on nights deranged, my hand insane
walking around holding a blade
sharing a cell with bukowski
turning tricks for jars of ink
it's so easy to make girl's trick
we all gotta pimp
swappin hand me down dreams
for usb drives filled with bootleg movies
being broke makes your peanut butter
appreciate jelly. makes you want to rewrite
dante's inferno, blocks have cantos
people forgot jews lived in the ghetto
jay-z is not david ben gurion
so the block stays devoured
dim echos of silent holocausts
of darfur's and rawandas
so gunplay only brings few tears
what's a driveby in the greater scheme of things?
what can a poem hope to mean?

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