Two Long Poems.

They're old and unedited. I wrote the descriptions a while ago too. 


Headspace.

'Headspace' was written for a spoken word poetry showcase back home at my old high school in Botswana called Verbal Emancipation. It was the first time that I tried to seriously bring in elements of rap (and trap!) into a spoken word piece, and I tried to be as faithful to those genres as possible while adding in some philosophical ideas that I was working over at the time. At the time of writing it, I liked saying that I was making 'intellectual trap', which is both ludicrous and pretentious to say. For me, it felt like a very ambitious undertaking since rapping without a beat is difficult. I also felt at the time that I could not find adequate examples in mainstream hip-hop culture of pieces that dealt with these ideas in the way that I wanted to hear. Also, it's unbearably long. In fact, the piece ended up much shorter than I wanted it to be. I was hoping to eventually make it vaguely symphonic and have different 'movements' with different ways of rapping being used to convey different ideas and pseudo-philosophical struggles. Maybe I'll do that one day.  I hope I can do more stuff like it in the future. I'm rather happy with how it turned out, though it isn't easy to perform and one needs a very specific type of audience for it to work as a spoken-word piece. Context: the theme of the show was 'Life Inside My Head'. Also, check out 'Don't Like' by Kanye West, Pusha T, Chief Keef, Jadakiss and Big Sean prod. by Kanye West and Young Chop to get a gist of the type of feeling I was going for, along with T.S Eliot's Four Quartets. 

I'm at it again

I'm at it again

Don't really have time for let's-just-be-friends

I go in again

I go in again

No band-aid ever go bandage this pain

I'm at it again

I'm at it again

Pretty clear by now my mind through the bends

I go in again

I go in again

Don't really have time for let's-just-be-friends

Never call me unfocused

No time for that bogus

shhhhhhh- that all the rappers be rappin'

Pretty clear who's trappin'

I just wanna say I made it

Wanna say who's the greatest

Man it's pretty clear who major

It's pretty clear who major

, I

start a conversation with my own mind

'bout living this life, how to be on my grind

but I find, all the time, that this rhy-thm and rhyme

is its own kind of prison- I won't even lie

but that's fine, that's the game, I won't even complain

it's a shame, kinda lame, that I'm 'ready feeling drained

it's deranged; barely even started with this talk

with my brain and I 'ready feel like I should walk

away, and sway, like I walk the walk that I talk to talk

as I balance these thoughts, in this vault:

the proverbial cerebrum in a jar

that with my eyes through a mirror I gaze at from afar

I look at my face and the thoughts that I face

say grace to a God that I know plays games

I pray: if I have a daughter by His grace He may

never in a moment when he floatin' feel like Odin

gas himself up, shoot my neurons up with lightning just to show 'em

a vision, in my cerebrum: go to the mountain

go make an altar and pray at the fountain

of the tears that your daughter Isaac gonna shed

As I lift the knife up and strike her in the head

Though this time, 'cause I ain't no Abraham;

this time, 'cause I have forsaken Him;

this time, no angel be stoppin' the

fulfilment of a prophecy where blasphemous philosophy is

punished;

a hunnit

waters be flowin' and chokin' even the ocean

I barely 'member the motion of showin' that ocean

I know how to breathe

I scream to the heavens and beg for redemption

how many of a Hail Mary I need?

To remember the motion of showin' that ocean

where bodies be floatin' and showin'

I know how to swim,

but heaven replies, know now you will die,

Noah will live and you are not him.

But I jump in the ark of the gaze-at-from-afar

of my eyes through the mirror- my brain in the jar

Jump back from the flooded heathen stream of my thoughts

Just in time for y'all to hear this chorus drop

I’m at it again

I’m at it again

No band-aid ever go bandage this pain

, I

ventured towards the woods one day

looking ahead to find you and say

I haven't forgotten that heat you were droppin'

Before I went looking for new ways to live

I did, mistake the trees for the forest

Though if I made it it would make my honest

I promised, to write you many a letter

You promised too but we didn't know better

I came to the States for the trophy to get it

I'm coming back home so they know that I got it

I tried to be humble but now I'm not confident

You only mumbled that I'm still on top of it

I should admit it: I am a hurricane, not just a zephyr

But if I go live it, I know you go livid, I don't put the effort

to try and remember your name on my mouth

but the truth of it all: your name stuck on my tongue

even if I am up North not the South

This is the problem, this is the paradox

This is my heart, this is the box

that I long put it in, in favour of mind

I have to say sorry if that don't seem kind

But I know that my heartbeat don't follow these lines

of reasoning, that I am reasoning, why I've been reading

and meaning to be leading a nation that be

not so brainwashed by the media, why I just heat it up

with all this debate, and fools I been beating up

in the arena of thought which I know we forgot

where the greatest human spirits lay in our thoughts

yet all we do is

feel without thought,

breathe without thought,

kiss without thought,

dance without thought,

kill without thought,

rape without thought,

rap without thought,

just time for y'all this beat drop

I go in again

I go in again

Pretty clear by now my mind through the bends

, I

drifted apart into more than one piece

hoping that I could find some kind of peace

in these dreams, in these dreams,

in these dreams, in these dreams,

restless all night all because of these dreams-

where the feet of my body aren't firm on the ground

where my mind is my body and I am unbound

but this is not sound because I am bound to snore

myself awake, and make mistakes, I can't retake

the fact that William Blake must paint the shades

of grey away to make his Songs of Innocence,

to make his Songs of Experience, of which I'm inexperienced

but the point is even a vision Romantic as his

is bounded by pages as crumpled as this

attempt at exploration which seeks what can't be found

because even a meditation has my ass on the ground

and even when I wasn't hesitating God wasn't around

to hear me ask Him questions- He didn't make a sound

(God...

That's that sh.... I don't like

That's that ... I don't...)

The silence of the universe isn't anything new to me

The songless Muses of time and space are never in harmony

The gift of the gab isn’t much of a jab to Nature’s Mother

So why I am bothered by one failed Our Father

Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done

On Earth As It Is In Heaven, Give Us This Day

Our Daily Bread. Not this silence instead.

(God

That's that sh.... I don't like

That's that ... I don't...)

So I went to the Buddha and asked him what's up

Said to him God wouldn't say what what was up

Is there a heaven and is there a hell?

Is there a way that I could tell?

How good is my karma, how bad is my mana?

How do I go and escape this samsara?

I'm tired of thinking, I'm tired of breathing

I'm tired of questions that seem so misleading

Give me an escape without all this debate

Enlighten my soul and relinquish my fate

past the ignorance, past the suffering

tired of feeling like I'm not in motion

tired of feeling like I'm always buffering

waiting for a moment, waiting for Godot

waiting for a way that will lead me home

waiting for even a place I'll call home

cause I left it behind for the trophy to get it

I wanna come back so I show 'em I got it

I wanna write letters to an old friend

and know better this time, that me and my friend

Are not that misguided in all our misgivings

Tell me dear Buddha how should I be living?

Don't tell me that you, don't know the answers

I know that you made it and you are the master

Don't tell me that you, don't know the answers

I know that you made it and you are the master

Don't tell me that you, don't know the answers

I know that you made it and you are the master

What do you mean that I don't understand it?

What do you mean that I don't understand it?

What do you mean that I don't understand it?

What do you mean that I don't understand it?

(GOD that’s sh... that I don’t

That’s that... I don’t

That’s that...I don’t like

That’s that... I don’t

GOD that’s sh... that I don’t

That’s that... I don’t

That’s that...I don’t like

That’s that... I don’t)

GOD- if I don't understand it or like it then I will just rap it:

I'm at it again

I'm at it again

Don't really have time for let's-just-be-friends

I go in again

I go in again

No band-aid ever go bandage this pain

I'm at it again

I'm at it again

Pretty clear by now my mind through the bends

I go in again

I go in again

Don't really have time for let's-just-be-friends

Never call me unfocused

No time for that bogus

shhhhhhh- that all the rappers be rappin'

Pretty clear who's trappin'

I just wanna say I made it

Wanna say who's the greatest

Man it's pretty clear who major

It's pretty clear who major

, I

***


The Romantic Era.

This...was the result of having one person impossibly stuck in my head for nearly the entirety of my first year in America. Often, this was offensive to me. Very often, I didn't even have the space to have my own thoughts without the spectre of this person suddenly appearing and challenging me about my mediocre thoughts on reality. I was further confused as to why said person would re-occur to me in this way so frequently. We weren't even talking then. I think I understand it a bit better now, and I think I'm slightly less scared of it as well. Though she pops up less frequently nowadays (Edit: even less frequently now; I find it difficult to imagine whether or not this is sad or not). I've learned that some people just enter your lives in some simple and violent explosion and you're just not quite the same after living through it. (Edit: This is probably true, but I'm inclined to now think of this as somewhat of an exaggeration). I now regard this as something that's rather beautiful, if not bittersweet. It's pretty cool actually. I think the form of this poem is, well, questionable- but I'm genuinely happy with how packed it is with thought and feeling. Even though dense poems are so very often self-defeating-the point of verse is to make bare the paper, not aggrandize it with endless splatters of paint- I love writing and reading them. So I can't help but have a soft spot for this poem. And for once, just once, I was honest, or almost honest, and that's more than enough for me. One last thing: I'm a dick, so I think that the font changes are clever instead of mean. (Edit: I don't care much for this type of poem anymore to be honest. Poetry without regard for form and structure isn't really poetry at all- it's just typing out your feelings, which is neither novel nor interesting. Even so, I still think that the intention, that pure sensation of feeling of which I'm no longer fond of, as something that was and is beautiful and I suppose  that that's enough justification for putting this one up, aside from writer's block. It may not be novel or interesting, but it is still undoubtedly the product of something that I care about. This, I suppose, is enough.) 

I knew it. 

I knew that I fucking didn't lose my calculator.

It was hiding under the grey coach. I just needed

to pull up the seating cushion to the far-right. 

Most hidden things require such actions: pulling

up shit hidden beneath under other shit. And then there's

thoughts of you still clutching my neck after midnight 

and I struggle to breathe because those hands around

my neck are really fingers around my heart. Not

clutching, just grasping; entertaining thoughts

that I shouldn't bother having any more: thoughts

that I'm sure should've been piled up under other 

shit. Under the grey coach. Under the seating cushion.

To the far right. On another cushion to the far-left

I am holding an essay on the true nature of reality

in my Buddhism class and I write your name down

next to an interesting thought but I scribble it down

lightly because, ironically, I want to respect the notion of you as

something separate from myself. I scribble it down

lightly because I'm afraid you'll become palpable

and I'll finally have to say all the things I've been 

meaning to not say. But maybe if I did things would be

different.

You knew it.

You knew that you fucking didn't lose yourself.

It was hiding under a camera filter, a Polaroid,

an Audrey Hepburn poster, a few notes of Ravel;

a few raspy whispers of French under the covers

of your dreams, a few desert sand dunes in the

Middle East, some hilltops of darling tea-leaves

covered under the snow further East from there, 

some acacia trees added in for measure somewhere

in the Sub-Sahara; Paris, New York and other foreign

things that aren't foreign anymore; more midnight 

mysteries with a boy as stubborn as you are but, 

unlike you cannot bother saying the word 'I'

without making it a joke; patterns in the sky,

the sun, the moon, other stars; words, words, words;

a seating cushion on the far right of the grey couch

where I imagined I'd find you when I needed you

but I've checked so many times for you that I never

have until I needed my calculator for the math homework

that I'm not doing now. 'There's this girl..." I say to my friends

and I hesitate to finish my sentence. There's this woman?

What is girl? What is woman? What is she? What are you?

What is a rose by any other name and what is the East

and what is the sun and what do I mean when I say that you and I are

different. 

My new Honors Humanities teacher showed us a painting

called 'Two Men Contemplating the Moon' by Friedrich 

and played us some music from Pandora on a playlist

titled 'Mozart' but it didn't sound right. There was no

self-righteous dance of structure and the numbers

weren't adding up right: in short, I loved it just as much

as I dislike Mozart: quite a bit. I was shocked at this little glory

of life until I asked my teacher what the name of the Mozart

composition was and he told me it was Prelude Op. 32 No. 12

by Rachmaninov and with that I began my formal study

of the Romantic. Before the snow had begun to melt into Spring

we were studying the great works of the Enlightenment in

Europe and the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet looked too much

like the mirror in my room that I've learnt to artfully ignore.

Whatever: besides the ironies of Hamlet I loved the staunch

beliefs of these Renaissance Men: Man is the great intermediary

between Heaven and Earth, and through our minds we can know

God. The philosophers! The mathematicians! The Michelangelo!

All little glories of life that I love: so why then, can Adam

not touch the index finger of God in the Sistine Chapel paintings?

The Romantics claim that there are some things that we cannot Know.

That this is where the Beauty of the world lies. That the Sublime

is to be discovered in the wondrous spontaneity of life, in the darling

buds of May, in the flights and fantasies of the individual, whose 

authenticity of emotion is the Supreme measure of artistic merit:

that it is through this unKnowing that we are to discover our own Truths.

God how I would Love to shake the Wordsworths of the world out of their

silly little heads but during our next class, when I try to talk about

why

I love the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony so much

I struggle to find the words. There is a brief thought of the inexpressible

beauty of the Romantic and how Beethoven was a bridge between

that and the world of the Classic. There is a brief memory of the inexpressible

way in which you both fluttered into and conflagrated my life: And

you always did love the Romantics. I liked to pretend that I didn't;

that it was some mere coincidence that most of my favourite artists

were not interested in dividing the world into bits and pieces of meaningless

intellectualisms in search for some new thing to call God. God

happened to be hiding in a dark theatre one day in Grahamstown

when, on a maroon-lit stage, streams of human bodies become ephemeral

and floated in and out of our consciousness and reality to the steady heartbeat

of Ravel's eternity, perfectly and strangely captured in 'Bolero',

and where there were all sorts of inexpressible dances happening between

our fingertips- which by some mere coincidence were a bridge between

the Classic and the Romantic and between me and you and let us go then,

you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky- in the theatre

in the everything everywhere everyone everywhen everyhow

encapsulated and clutched between the unioned hands of two teenagers in the dark. God,

was it really that simple?  

If so, then I am annoyed. If so, then I am in love.