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?

Screams

Sometimes the cry for attention is an eighteen wheeler
jack knifing during rush hour.

Sometimes the steel cylinder bursts open leaking chemicals
that etch cries for help into the pavement.

Sometimes the pavement is a red leaf
blending into the earth as silent as a razor cuts skin.

Sometimes the razor has feelings and auburn hair,
and wonders why ripping flesh could be as simple
as breaking a pencil in half.

Sometimes the halves of pencils pretend to be broken birds.
Tumbling down three flights of stairs
praying to transform into body and bread.

Sometimes bread cries 6 times a day
and birds fly 85 miles per hour with tears in their eyes
thinking that a lightening storm would be safer than nesting

Sometimes lightening storms hiss dirges that echo
on the chilled tips of fading visitors
and keen them back to life.

Sometimes life rushes back crying
and screaming into the earth.

Sometimes the earth is warm with blood.

Sometimes it is nothing at all.

Charles Bukowski

When I was a teenager, Bukowski affirmed my idea that poetry can be real.

By real, I mean rooted in real things - in what is earthy, ordinary, momentary, and pathetic.

He appealed to my sense of values: swagger, confident, totally himself.

He admitted publicly many of our private fears, "where is the specialness of war and peace...i read the great poets...all i get is goddam headache and boredom...there is some trick going on here."

He wanted poetry to be more than what it was/what it is.

He said there is still room for people to come into this world and do something great.

And for me - that was and is very affirming and very hopeful.

These sentiments gave me the freedom to write poems about pissing outside, or rants about freshman girls, or driving down the highway, or the small stories that make up my life.

He made it okay to get that dirty, that plebeian, that indulgent.

In 2009, I have several opportunities to lead some creative writing workshops for young people, and I hope to be able to inspire in them what Bukowski inspired in me.

A great love and faith in the poetry of bars, bonfires, and frat houses.

Enjoy this clip and remember to keep striving upward.