From Henry David Thoreau to Jean Jacques Rousseau
I keep it thorough for all the burrows including William S.
This is no trap rap, I’ll leave behind the cheddar
just to read Alan MacKellar by candlelight in a cellar
If I buy my time, then who’s to be the seller?
That’s no Catch-22 Joseph Heller
It’s just Pascal’s wager to show on the nose of a no-show teller
I’m not Christian son, but I read hella John Donne
Sprinkle hash in the Dutchie, get so high you can’t touch me
so you can call me the rap Rushdie
with words I paint saintanic verses
the way the blasphemy burns is just so lovely
I go down with Dante putting back Molotov cocktails with triple shots
of Bombay when I freestyle after reading Ross Gay
Bringing The Shovel Down again at the end with your own lovely hands
On my bucket list I still have a lot to check off
like reading all the works of Anton Chekov
I’ll still be singing in my coffin like W.H. Auden
But now that life is upon us, let’s stay young and spillin’ sonnets like Dylan Thomas
Drinking vodka with Kafka but he calls it water
Pouring it out at The Vietnam Memorial with Komunyakaa
but he sees himself in the slaughter, Facing It
I see myself in his face full of tears
I see myself when I face all these wasted years
Couldn’t borrow so I had to take part in my own state of the art
stake through the Heart of Darkness
I drink therefore I am pouring liquor out for Descartes
in a graveyard in full bloom, trying to read Sartre
in a dark living room is hard
X Karl Marx the spot of a scarlet letter
cull the living flower that I start to jot in my starlit fetters
after sparking pot in the parking lot, what dark matters
to the black market of forever? Whatever’s clever
enough to survive the shark pit of a better argot
hip-hop and books are real starlets of the deepest pleasure
Thomas Paine, the only Common Sense I know is
that I Used To Love H.E.R., and I still do, do you, too?
Read Shel Silverstein where the sidewalk ends
light in the attic, we were the best of friends
thanks for letting me sit back and just pretend
While reciting Chaucer I got abducted by a flying saucer
Read Shakespeare among the everglades
open up to forever locked in a page
Shouts to all the people reading Pynchon
when their pension gets cut
and what can you do about it but make your little letters
stunning after reading e.e. cummings
Even before you open the door, it’s more 1984 than ever before
Big Brother, should we feel shitty Orwell?
Who needs Leaves of Grass when you’ve got wit man?
But maybe I should just shut the fuck up and sit on my hands
I could win the Olympics for cynics
but it’s not because I mimic Charles Simic
it’s just because my head plays more blues than there is on the news
I look like I’ve seen more dead dudes than Ted Hughes reading Plath
bleeding, yet receding the wrath of being left on the raft of a suicidal last laugh
Love is that which we long to suffer for, love is War and Peace
Tolstoy’s toy soldiers line up at each side knowing they’ll meet their demise
over and over, and now that it’s out, there’s no going back in the holster