Sunday, April 26, 2009

A voice from tomorrow

steel trees reach up to grey skies
begging atonement these defiling lies
shadows of trees long since consumed
by the restless beast, slouching towards doom
where did the green go? the earth seems the moon
all color left the world at the big boom
turned men to shadows, memories too soon
etched a history of pain into the landscape
so now we make do, into technology we escape
these steel solar trees power heaven
the beautiful, glorious, world-wide-web
where you can be sassy and classy not dreary or drab
like the world outside
from which we hide

london town: things written from milwaukee to london and back again

hey there:

beautiful girl with eyes so sweet
how i wish you and i could meet
like eyes across a crowded bar
connection so close, bodies so far
lives touching, passing like ships
in the night, moving like hips
under dance-floor lights
i see you in those tights
and my throat gets so tight
and i don't want to sit
i want to take the hit
sucker punched by your smile
i want to breathe you in for a while
exhale, inhale, hold you to my chest
because you seem different from the rest


alone

traveling alone is a frighteningly enlightening experience
so many transient faces flicker through my view
it all ticks along, propelled, guided by some sick sense
i want to reach out, touch, grab, scream to you or you
Notice Me! Talk to Me! Validate Me! I Exist!
but i'm just another traveler, one lost in millions
disappearing slowly into electronic mist
soon reduced to my component ions


the minneapolis airport

white geometries of ceiling part
black ribs exposed, no heart
birds flutter through the skeleton
outside and in, boundaries gone
metal cousins power through the sky
carrying hundreds not afraid to die
trusting aerodynamic magic
all ignorant, yet no panic

this airport is so post-structural
designed to house imitations of nature
roost of our greatest desire, we want to wing
here lie our metal dragons, waiting to sing


Mind the Gap

between the platform and the train
stare out at blue sky free of rain
is this ole London Towne? Am i here?
i've gone so far, through planes and fear
but i guess this is it, the end and the start
left one home to find the home of my heart?
searching amongst packed masses on the tube
my wandering gaze pegs me an american rube
freckled faces, olive skin, black gloves, white hair
strange accents, newspapers, inquisitive stare
grime bumps from headphones, long toes tap
while i long for some good-ol' gangsta rap
beautiful people of all skin tones packed together
bougie britons bunched in the tube forever
unmoving, unchanging, lights flicker by
train breaks the plane, eyes seek the sky
stop. get off. mind the gap


kensington garden haikus

cheerful apathy
sometimes i don't care at all / but i always have a ball
mirthful meaningless

light ripples softly
birds float across the water
wind blows peacefully

mating birds in flight
graceful, violent, dance of life
wheeling through the sky

swan's gaze is hard
unflinching in the round bond
tougher than its beak

noble swan in trap
doomed to live in a circle
yet freer than we


leaving london

half an hour to boarding
time for some fun, let it out no hoarding

let the beat flow down the pen
let it flow like sheep from the pen
no damning here, no stopping the current
just grindin hard, tryin to stay current
up to the minute, up to date
like a lame trying to impress his girl on a first date
but you know he's about to fail, he is whack
gonna go home alone, give it a whack
while i swoop in and steal his girl
got her screamin so loud i go "damn, girl"

but here i am chillin in the airport
writin rhymes on the back of my passport

twenty five minutes till i get on the plane
here's hopin this flight ain't lame
prayin i get the free shit, maybe free booze
get a little tipsy, maybe have a snooze
if i'm lucky i might get lucky
mile high club, five dolla sucky sucky
but i know thats just a crazy dream
here's to hopin i wake the plane with her screams!

cuz here i am chillin in the airport
writin rhymes on the back of my passport

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

old and new

Touch

The more i eat, the more i crave
starving, filled and yet so hollow
To my food I am a slave
the food beckons, and i must follow
the contours, textures of the meal
luscious curves, succulent sweets
like a thief in the night i steal
ripe fruits and chocolate treats
fill my stomach up with food
pleasure/pain, guilt feels so good
body fed with sins of excess
but the heart feels so much stress


The End Times

Will need a longer poem than this
just know they are coming soon
destruction, corruption, fascism with a kiss
planet dies, ocean burns, sun at high noon
why can't we see what we have wrought
we won't miss the birds till they are nought

Look Around

Concrete walls are all i see
inorganic bullshit encasing the land
oh we're green - look at that tree!
like that's enough, give them a hand
killed the planet but made lots of art
destroy all that we touch, can't touch your heart

Rousseau

Man is not made for the world
that he has made
we are born wild and free
raised simple and mild
taught to kill our selves
take the blue pill

Business Man's Day Off

S and M, black whips on white flesh
mortify , exorcise, sweat and sex
watch love and pain mesh
pain, gain, chains and latex
hurt me, i'm sorry, beat me mum
oh yes i deserve it here i cum

Porn Ain't Sex

bright pink skin on skin
clean easy hard perfect great
man svelte and strong woman taut and thin
this isn't sex, wheres the love, the hate?
porn ain't real porn's an ideal
don't make you feel just makes you squeal

Stillness

silence. nothingness
float empty within my head
I. oblivion

Monday, April 20, 2009

bells are ringing

These notes they ring so resonant
Pealing melodies sweet and consonant
But sour notes can mar the harmony
Make me wonder if this song was meant to be
First contact so sweet and simple
Complicated by the smile and the dimple

Things getting complex, multiple melodies
But the sweetest songs are yet to sing
Future holds many potential harmonies
But only in my mind do they ring
Lets loose these songs to fly free
Like birds and slaves all want to be

Like you and me
Free and happy and so lovely

Sunday, April 19, 2009

what is hip hop? Greg Tate knows

found this little gem while researching a paper about hiphop and postmodernism
just had to share



Buddha blessed and boo-ya blasted
These are the words that she manifested
A grim little tyke in a black pleather raincoat
She stepped to the mike and said,
Repeat after me, there is no such thing as alternative hip-hop
So Boo in the blue silk hoody pops up
Hey baby you’d be a good-looking a man if you worked at it but what the fuck you know about hip-hop?
Why he go and say that?
She said, I know hip-hop like I know your mother.
Your mother so hip-hop I seen her laying pipe in Alaska
Your mother so hip-hop she yelled ho ‘fo I even axed her
Your mother so hip-hop she thinks biz markie’s cute as shit
Your mother so hip-hop she told you, time to get off your dick
Next time you speak to your mother, send her my best

Buddha blessed and boo ya blasted
These are the words that she manifested:
Hip-hop is inverse capitalism
Hip-hop is reverse colonialism
Hip-hop is the world the slaveholders made, sent into nigga-fide future shock.
Hip-hop is the plunder from down under, mackin all others for pleasure
Hip-hop is the black aesthetic byproduct of the
American dream machine, our culture of consumption, commodification, and subliminal seduction
Where George Clinton warned us about Madison
Avenue urge overkill, the pimping of the pleasure principle, hip-hop embraces the pleasures of the pimping principle
Hip-hop is the first musical movement in history where black people pimped themselves before the white boy did
Hip-hop pimped the funk before the white boy and heavy metal too
Hip-hop is the perverse logic of capitalism pursued by an artform
Like capitalism, hip-hop converts raw soul into store rack commodity
Like capitalism, hip-hop has no morals, no conscience, and no ecological concern for the scavenged earth or the scavenged American minds it will wreck in its pursuit of new markets
Unlike Sigourney weaver’s nemesis alien, hip-hop is not the other man’s rape fantasy of the black sex machine gone berserk.

Hip-hop is James Brown’s pelvis digitally grinded into technomorphine.
Hip-hop is dope-know-logy, the only known antidote for prime-time sensory deprivation
There is no such thing as alternative hip-hop because the only alternative to hip-hop is is dead silence and we all know such silence signifies a lack of breath
There is no such thing as good hip-hop or bad hip-hop, progressive hip-hop or reactionary hip-hop, politically incorrect hip-hop or hip-hop with a message.
Its either hip-hop or it ain’t. Shit
hip-hop is beyond good and evil, hip-hop is beyond life and death
hip-hop was dead but hip-hop reanimated
hip-hop does not live on YO! MTV Raps
hip-hop currently resides beneath the noise where all the fly girlz and boyz use hip-hop as a form of telemetry telepath and telekinesis
hip-hop is how you say I love you to a hip-hop junkie
hip-hop is your password into the cult of hip-hop infomaniacs
You know hip-hop when you see it
You may not see hip-hop before it seizes you
hip-hop is not what it is today but what it could be tomorrow
hip-hop ain’t shit but everything is hip-hoppable mad flava beatable
hip-hop is pumas and a goody today but why not leather fringe and sequins tomorrow?
If hip-hop wanted to be that corny, who could argue with it but a muhfuhkuh who was faded?
What’s hip-hop today could easily become passé
Arguing with hip-hop about the nature of hip-hop is like arguing with water about the nature of wetness.
Like Bunny Wailer said, some tings come to ya, some tings come at ‘cha, but hip-hop flows right through ya

hip-hop is so far gone up its own ass you can’t even speak on it unless you follow the trail of hip-hop’s intestines out the lower end
hip-hop is the rattlesnake that bit off its own tail, then listened to the death rattle warning the head that it was swallowing up the body.
hip-hop is what happened when the black community became the
Bermuda Triangle and lost track of itself on the radar screen of Reaganomics.
hip-hop is the blip that boom-bipped then turned up to crack, black is back all in we’re gonna exterminate our own next of kin

Pink people wanna know if other pink people like hip-hop how can it still be hip-hop?
That’s like asking, if black people like
Dirty Harry is he still Clint Eastwood?
Hip-hop is beyond black nationalism.
hip-hop is not hung up on counter-supremacy because it reigns supreme like all the other dope fiends
hip-hop is half black and half Japanese
hip-hop is digital chips on the shoulders of African lips
hip-hop is black Prozac
hip-hop is if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em, if you can’t beat ‘em, blunt ‘em
hip-hop is black sadomasochism
hip-hop is where the hurting ends and the feeling begins or is that the other way around?
hip-hop Is how we rip off the nad aids and pour saltpeter on the wounds
hip-hop is Ralph Ellison, who once said the blues is like running a razor blade along an open sore.

If it wasn’t for black English and hip-hop I wouldn’t have no blues at all
hip-hop is my black cat moan
hip-hop is my black cat scan
hip-hop is all I need to stop
It’s time for my medicine
Time to face the music again
Buddha blessed and boo-ya blasted
These are the words that she manifested.

Greg Tate

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

to all the coasties

walking down the mall / watchin las chicas leavin the hall

this girl here with a phone on her ear / talkin so loud the whole world can hear

who does she think she is / have you seen this silly biz

bougie girls with starbucks in hand / slaves to their own brand

such nice people i'm sure / but they all so damn insecure

can't relate to these fools / they've all chosen to be tools

but they be the majority / so i guess i should act nicely

go to their parties and play along / take jello shots and play beer pong

but underneath its all hollow / Can't love this girl (even if she swallow)

makes me wanna fill that hole / not between your legs girl the one in your soul

though i'd love to do you too / pull your hair and call you boo

i got a love-hate thing going on / love these women hate the bullshit they be on

i guess thats why i wrote this song

a rap i wrote in class one day

fuck notes i'll write quotes

original quotables comin up like lunchables

mass produced bullshit all over your shoes

but ya'll the lunchables, i'm a sandwich

template for you - cookie cutter ass bitch

i define discourses dialectically 

while you sit around and watch MTV

i am the decider, derider, narrative driver

spit truth so quality, I am the MC

Platonic form of a goddam rapper

turnin girls on like the clapper

and you thought i'd stop there?

but i only stop once its in her hair

sorry girl, you thought I was nice

but if I recall, you already came twice

shits so good it cures all ills

call me the doctor, proscribing these mad skills