undisputed backtalk champion

Collected Poems

GEORGE WATSKY

A project of Youth Speaks, Inc., First Word Press offers young writers the opportunity to publish their rst book. Each year, Youth Speaks publishes a number of young writers whose work reects a commitment to social dialogue and artistic integrity beyond perceived boundaries of age, race, class, sexual orientation or culture. It is our hope that in doing so, we can help redene the canon and rmly place these young writers into the literary continuum that continues to dene the voice of todays American poetic. Executive Editor, James Kass Editor-In-Chief, Paul S. Flores Guest Editor, Adam Mansbach book design by Adriel Luis ISBN 0-9779136-2-7 (pbk.) 2006, First Word Press & George Watsky First Word Press, an Imprint of Youth Speaks, Inc. San Francisco, CA 2006
All rights reserved. All of the writings in this book are the exclusive property of the Author and Youth Speaks, Inc., and cannot be reproduced without the express written consent of the Author and Publisher.

www.youthspeaks.org www.georgewatsky.com

for my father, a poet

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foreword

Dont read this book because the next generation can speak for itself and you want to support the youth. The best way to do that is by sending a briefcase full of money to the address listed on the copyright page. The best reason to read George Watsky is not because he happens to be young, but because his words bob and weave, feign and duck and jab, because his poems sweat their way to twelve-round winning decisions and rack up rst-round knockouts and pop volumes of smack at post-ght press conferences. Because the opponents with whom Watsky steps into the ring this skinny-lookin verbal pugilist with a mind on him like a diamond cutter are conspicuous consumption and political lethargy, cultural co-option and personal disaffection these being, not coincidentally, the crimes of which his generation has been (unfairly) accused time and again. One thing I love about Watskys poetry is its refusal to take the easy way out by sacricing meaning or complexity for the sake of the hot punchline, the crowd-pleasing turn of phrase. This is an even greater accomplishment because the Backtalk Champ has a natural facility for hot punchlines; he delights in wordplay, in layering meaning upon meaning, in the sheer joys and possibilities of language. He has reaped the rewards of his cleverness, seen entire concert halls erupt with laughter and slam-judges hoist perfect tens, but Watsky has crafted this collection to be more than a transcription of his spoken-word identity. Undisputed Backtalk Champion is a work created for the page, one that transcends the inherent parameters of the slam scene without sacricing the visceral immediacy of orality. The other thing I love about this book is its expansiveness, the way each piece breathes and evolves. Where so much poetry maintains an R. Kelly-like reliance on a single emotional note, Watsky is unafraid to let his pieces progress, to cycle through a range of tones and hues, to introduce and balance multiple themes. Thus, his poems are journeys to which one can return time and again, rather than simple manifestos to be read, absorbed, and left behind. I attribute this sensibility to Watskys years as a jazz
GEORGE WATSKY

drummer; it has translated as a true poetic understanding of polyrhythm. Layer that with a hip hop-hewn linguistic dexterity, and youve got something serious going on. Add an instinctive understanding of how to cut serious social commentary with so much wit that it goes down easy, and youve got something dangerous. Add a commitment to honesty and self-reection that stops the poet from employing that humor in service of letting himself off the hook, and youve got something beautiful. - Adam Mansbach, author of Angry Black White Boy, or The Miscegenation of Macon Detornay

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Contents

Foreword Undisputed Backtalk Champion Halife Volvotive 420 West Daisy Chains The Gospel of Prep School Buy a Smile Then Whos the Man in the Yellow Hat? Beirut Shadowland Burn Again Chain Reaction/ Hand Me America Same Page I Am Cupid Acknowledgements About the Author First Word Press About Youth Speaks

v 3 6 10 12 17 20 28 33 38 39 44 47 54 59 63 65 67 69

undisputed backtalk champion

Undisputed Backtalk Champion

I know what youre thinking and yes I do work out. You may nd this hard to believe but I was not always the mentally muscled pencil pusher you see exing his mind before you. You see back in the day I was super super lightweight back-talking-elementary-school-teachers champion. With one raise of my scrawny arm I could hit Mrs. Ames with the colloquial plural of octopus list every Venezuelan Vice-President in reverse alphabetical order and correct a subject-verb disagreement in her original question our phones were ringing like a save the whales telethon back then. Inquiring teachers wanted to know how could such a skinny little kid be lled with so much hatred and contempt? Back talkers dont win many blacktop boxing matches scrawny arms raised for throwing sand and exacting scratches. Because educated fourth-grade playground mercenaries know creating pain is easier than creating Whiteboys narrower than Urkel! This imaginations fertile but you cant t a square into a social circle
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Though stuffed into a locker one tends to get philosophical blood, black and blue do make a pretty shade of purple. In seventh grade I scrawled Neanderthal across Takashis locker with a Sharpie after he lit my hair on re to see what it would smell like I left a couple blazing trails on the asphalt when he tore after me during lunch Coulda been friends but nerds with vendettas offend and God prefers burning a vandal on both ends; melted wax poetics Doing lines of Shakespeare in the bathroom with a library card and a twisty straw. That lightweight Hulk Hogan who cant bench press the wheaties box his face is on I dont think I need remind anyone of my famous last stand in middle school the post PE face-off in the hallway Mr. Minshull and his whistle blocking the exit. My boombox was the only one that ever stuck by my side so I cranked the janky credo-blaster to 10 If you wanna go and get high wit me Smoke an L in the back of the BenZ Oh why must I feel this way? Started rhyming over the top of his head I cant remember exactly what was said just that it was epic. Brought in references to Machiavelli

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and post-civil war reconstructionism Every phrase had a sneaky metaphor and three punchlines Soon a crowd gathered to bear witness Got more sauce than shoyu a kid fainted Watch your back cause Ill lyrically destroy you OOOoooooooooh! Next thing I know Ofcer Krupke is reading me my Miranda Rights in the principals ofce apparently according to state penal code lyrical destruction is still a threat and a federal offense. Every time I tell my friends the story I leave out the tear that hits the ground in front of my chair, the sobs struggling to get out of my throat. That lightweight lightskinned grandmaster of emotional repression I know what youre all thinking and please dont tell anyone

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Halflife
Grandma likes to remind us of the importance of the holidays if you dont nail it when God is watching you closest how are you supposed to get it right the rest of the time? I forgot Chanukah this year sat in my room watching Threes Company reruns (the father, the son and the holy ghost) until I came downstairs and saw dad packing up the menorah on day nine. I forgot Passover last year and the year before that and I just found out Yom Kippur existed. Thought the Festival of Lights was the electrical parade down Main Street in Disneyland I can still shut my eyes and see Rabbi Silver holding hands with Dopey. I suppose it wouldnt be so bad if I were a goy came from a Baptist mispocha and asked for my daily leavened bread during the holidays I suppose it wouldnt be so bad if I wasnt Jewish (Well, half Jewish) but Ive only been to one Bar Mitzvah it wasnt mine, and to be honest, I was only there for the candy. Sometimes I get concerned That my gentile halife

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lasts 365 days a year. I think if half Jewish meant I only had to remember half the holidays I might be a little more motivated If it meant my left hand only knew what my right hand said so with my right Id hold the torah and my left Id raise the dead Or I could half believe in Jesus and half believe hes fraud and believe the Red Sea opened just for half the Jews to cross Id be a model Jew (built to half scale) But I cant picture myself with a yarmulke and curly sideburns pounding scripture and Jgermeister at a Bar Mitzvah with an after-party at the Hustler club I tend to have more sobering fantasies standing at the altar altering the torah and dishonoring decorum: Baruch Ata I dunno Elevator melancholy Chomsky Noam Shechechiyanu, Vikings, Randy Moss and Superbowl. I forgot Chanukah this year and theres no one to potch the leck out of my mouth

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or sew up the holes in my reasoning. Ive been thinking if a full Jew comes of age at 13 then maybe Ive been a man since 6 1/2 and I can blame my forgetfulness on Alzheimers Or I could get faded at the Seder drink a fth of Manneschevitz and an eighth of Tequila slurring words until I cant sing Halfa Nagila Cry into my Borsht Im just half and half that make a whole for me to crawl into and die But Im just overthinking All too alive and kicking And lately my heart hasnt been beating my head to the punch my cranium my atrium my temple is my temple my skull is my confession booth. I cant admit the real problem to myself that if I remembered eight Chanukahs a year it wouldnt make me a mench Root sellers hoard relics I keep mine in the back of my mind

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A piece of Moses collarbone My bris My grandma Syde And Chanukah (next year)

GEORGE WATSKY

Volvotive
The rumors are true: I get around in my moms station wagon A big backseat always gets a good headturning radius but nothing screams momcar like a boxy volvo. Although if I cruise with enough condence I can sometimes play it off as hipster or emo . If I pick a girl up on the side of the car with hubcaps I daresay it looks a little classy Volvo Racing decal on windshield glass Nitrous Oxide booster (cigarette lighter) near the dash Come hither young lady your chariot awaits * Six weeks after I got my license I picked up Michelle for a pleasant Sunday drive. Stopstarted down the street to her house and made it through twenty miles of winding country road before (as so often is the case) the curves got the better of me. Took her a while to realize we were three wheels 10
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off the ground in a trench; the road had ditched us. And I think if she hadnt been stuck in the passenger seat she would have ditched too. After a couple hours a policeman showed up to make sure I knew the gravity of the situation. Looks like you spit out a bit more than you could chew boy. * After the second time I got towed I went to the impound to pick it up; found a parking ticket and a new dim sum menu under the wiper Sufce it to say that now when I walk into the Tong Palace it feels right The usual Mr. Watskies? I tend to get choked up at the Palace when my vegetable dumplings come you just cant buy a good friend. And as much as I bit my lip pulling up to high school parties these days Id rather pull into the middle of a cul de sac at night pointed towards Mecca, Sweden encircle the wagon with votive candles and read a passage from the Good Book Thank you for your purchase from Volvo! Youve got a lot of miles ahead of you.

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420 West
Pamplona * The crowd staggers collectively still trashed off kalimotxo from the night before European bloc heads agree: youre not partying till youve drank your body weight in equal parts coca-cola and cheap wine. Im not enough of a lightweight for that. Me and Nick split the scene but the Chupiazo throng swallows John Turns out hes just kickin it (it being a broken champagne bottle) and lurches out into the clear his leg drenched crimson looking a lot like he needs a stiff drink and a Bible Jesus Bloody Mary And Joseph por la energa santa entregeme de estos borrachos The rst man struck down in the Running of the Bulls MMV We pay daily homage to him after he has the tendons to his toes reconnected. But lying prone on the starched hospital bed, American tenderfoot, I cant help but wonder how of the thousands of sloppy drunks in the town square the sober Americans managed to get fucked up the worst

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* Two days later me and Nick trip down the Pamplona cobblestones at 7 AM rocking white cotton pantalones and scarlet bandanas Trying to breathe life into our false bravado. Yo Snacks, maybe if we start at the end of the course we can dive under the fence when the bulls catch upwe can still say we ran Nah, lets start at the end of the course and run behind them If we could somehow get on top of the bulls then it would be hard for them to run us over. 10 minutes from the gun and mercy comes in the form of our horde of smashed Spaniards Eurotrashed from last nights Sangria and ready to get bloody Mas Sangre! when the rst beer bottle sails across the police barricade I see a glimmer of hope in the forest green glass One martyr scales the wall and scales back with an open head wound. When the police pour out with riot gear and start swinging the heavens open up and shine I think I see God give us a thumbs up but he could just be waving. I mostly get little bruises on my arms Hallelujah! Nick slips and one ofcer unloads

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goes Gary Shefeld on his back Hallelujah! Later at the hostel we call our friends and tell them we went running with the pigs. * Paris * Tell me its the greatest city on the planet when youre tipping a thrifty 10% on a fourteen dollar Sprite and the gratuity costs more than the drink should have I didnt feel too worldly trying to break into the club scene with two teenage buddies collectively sporting six dirty tennis shoes and a pair of crutches. We couldnt have crossed a velvet rope if it was blocking the way to a vending machine. My friends got into the spirit of the city and stayed in the Latin Quarter at a Best Western. Comparatively my accommodations were quite reasonably priced centrally located uncrowded but come to think of it most elementary school stoops are. Looking down at my hands I notice how clean I am Playing dress-up in Europe, This is a game;

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homeless for a day I imagine myself storming the Bastille the streets running red with the blood of my bourgeoisie friends but at this point when the revolution comes Im gonna be taken out too. * Hjrring * Theres something beautiful about nding a piece of home at the edge of nowhere San Francisco is so somewhere I swear on the memory of Clement Street that at 1 AM, July 22nd the wooden bench in Hjrring, Denmark curved into the small of my back exactly like the one at the 6th and Fulton bus stop. And the shing town breeze hit my cheek cool dry salty just like the one that blows in off the Pacic. I know if I just try I can fold the 40th parallel over on the 60th and twist until San Francisco shifts onto the Jutland Peninsula. I guess we let our guard down. Theres something creepy about watching a small-town Danish kid pull out a cell phone and show you pictures of his home-made water bong;

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tell you how he gets the best trips when he mixes speedoxycontincocainemushrooms(caps,stems)extacybutnotheroineyet. I suppose I wasnt as badass as I thought coughing my lungs up off the box of Js we bought back in Amsterdam Circled around that bench or maybe it was circling us it was swimmingly clear that kids everywhere in the world are trying to get away from the same place And theres something depressing about nding a piece of home in Scandinavia. But when Frederiks eyes rolled aft in his head I imagined he wanted a better look at something in the back of his mind That maybe we were thinking the same thing; that if we tried we could fold the 15-east Meridian over 420 west Twist the crust of the earth up like a Philly Blunt and feel the same breeze pufng in over the ocean on the back of our necks

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Daisy Chains
I pluck up one of my rst memories six years old in the outeld of a teeball game She loves me She loves me not She loves me She loves me not Dont forget to yell, I got it! Kids around me shooting up like weeds like junkies Skip everywhere Play hopscotch Skip to school Skip home Skip to dinner Skip to school Skip school Skip to meals Skip school Skip meals Skip school meals Didnt you hear kid? You have a couple more years left before your dreams are crushed by the weight of the world. So get your kicks while you still can How much do you weigh Sally?
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60 whole pounds? Youre still in school? Want to be pretty? Cool? She loves me not Innocence nds sanctuary in a blade of grass Knows that the only way to go is to pick a handful of daisies covered in blood They love me not You could stand to lose a couple pounds I hear chain-smoking in the bathroom during math class helps preteens shed love handles. And Im taking this sitting down in the outeld grass Killing daisies Ripping them lovingly from the ground Tearing the petals off I uproot another bloody handful Grave room This is being young Twist the trunks around each other like theyve learned to dance Lock the stems together Its come full circle Caress their roots up from the soil She loves me not Slip them around wrists She loves me Six years old

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in the park wearing daisy chains around my wrists She loves me She doesnt love me anymore She must hate me I made some chains for you Skip school meals to chain smoke in the bathroom Daisies around wrists she pulls a handful of razor blades from the soil Twists them together learning to grind 6 7 8 17 18 19 Im pulling years up from the grass and all I ever did was take it like a man

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The Gospel of Prep School

And now the University High School chorus presents Oh Praise his Holy Name! by Keith Hampton! Its real Gospel music! Please feel free to snap or applaud at a reasonable volume during this number (Call and response is a crucial element of African American culture.) Sometimes during 7th period I nd myself doing math while were huddled around the piano Lets see we have an Asian girl and two half Asian girls and 1(x) + 2(.5x), where the variable x represents the amalgamation of human experience East of the Ural mountains equals apparently the racial quota for the admissions ofce can be stretched to include white boys with popped-collar polo shirts and a bomb vocabulary of hip slang in black America circa June, 1998 The sharpest kid couldnt dull the irony of This polyphony. I think Ill put it in a research paper address the topical wounds with a sentence or two and then dig deeper with some empty rhetoric For example 1. How can we intellectualize such important issues? (see above) 2. Will we face any physical consequences from the community? 3. Why do good white kids listen to rap music 96 Sophomores crowd into the library for a class meeting

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Timbrell ditches to make a run to Sam Goody and cops a dozen copies of Curtis 50 Cent Jacksons rst contribution to the canon. The jewel cases are propped up like bonre logs on the claw-foot mahogany table the glow lights up a cluster of huddled faces as if the blaze had been created by rubbing the edges of Compton and Brooklyn together and imploring members of N.W.A to do a ve man marathon to run the torch into our library. This is the album that busted a thousand sub woofers And convinced more than a couple parents That hip hop is not music, Its a bacterial culture. Not that they should worry Weve got the sense to ip the tenses to t Pacic Heights Consensus: Stay Rich and Die Trying to get Richer

Beethoven may have been the rst composer to connect two movements of a symphony And Palestrina may have mapped out The most complicated harmonies of the sixteenth century but according to my Western History textbook neither of them ever took a slug to the chest
Who hasnt tried to hide their jealousy of that great Caucasian C-Walk sensei? The footquick kid who who went from poplocking at sock hops to crip walking on prom parquet proving conclusively that being able to spell a word with your feet, use it in a sentence and provide its classical etymology is by no means equivalent to understanding its deeper signicance.

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This is worship music Bend over to the oor and touch your toes Get your eagle on Let me see you get low Every prep schooler on the dance oor please assume prayer position Most everyone takes their Eucharist before mass debauchery. the formula is simple crackers and Old English. Whos to say our generation hasnt learned from our British forefathers? Weve got our copies of the King James Bible open to Genesis and were testifying On the rst day God created University High School and it was Good

Urban legend tells us of a heroic battle Unlike any ancient bloody skirmish Where two prep school ronins took to the pool table At a killer after-dance keg party Once and for all To settle

The issue of whose school Was of general higher quality.*

As soon as the hometeam entered the room the cheerleaders bugged UHS! UHS! UHS!
*Brendan got hit with: Check, checkYouve got less ow than your mom after menopause

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Praise the Lord! On the second day God created upperclassmen and they were Good Praise the Lord! Its easy to be the focal point of your own world in campus pangea. All you need to do is navigate to the student center where the compass needle has little direction in life. Traverse the great planes of the tennis courts and computer lab catacombs. Kneel at the altar The college apse Light sixteen candles and ask for four more years of limbo Some want to be students Some want to go honeymooning I heard from John who heard from Natalie who heard from Mister Spivack that the student center caf is switching from their Pepsi contract to Heineken and open taps, Daiquiri Fridays with festive mini umbrellas for the rst fty freshmen. Our hands are so smooth weve evolved past ngerprints and cant pick up pennies without sliding them off the edge of a table and gathering a handful in our open palms were accruing important life skills like how to balance a checkbook on our heads In class we study a picture of a woman toting a bucket of water down to the river everyone sympathizes although I havent seen a smile as wide as hers in a month.

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The upper courtyard stretches out to the horizon and the naked white man statue rises up from the stone as if to say we too shall overcome or suck it disenfranchised minorities Every kid around could tell you the piece is reminiscent of Doryphoros and the torque on his torso creates dynamic diagonal composition but most would be at a loss to give the names of the janitors who carried the two ton monolith to its resting spot Our research topics are carefully chosen. If youd prefer to cheat the easy answers can all be found in the appendix at the back of your textbook

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Appendix A
Is here because lodi dodi, we likes to sing and dance and play dress up want to see our masks? Citywide C-Walk Spelling Bee Champions never need a word used in a sentence to give you waist lines and foot notes and foot notes to the foot notes Like C-R-I-P and N-I-G-GWait! Maybe if we keep dancing in this direction well end up holding griot sticks and doing racist shtick, throwing up clenched sts like we tried to give our clueless mugs an uppercut and missed. Dont worry though you can have a cultural enlightening and keep the polo shirts and trust fund after all I had my appendix removed in fourth grade and had no complications Sing to the Power of the Lord come down Shout Hallelujah Praise his holy name!

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Glossary
In Alphabetical Order white (hwt, wt), adj., whiter, whitest, n., v., whited, whiting. adj. 1. the absence of all color (antonym: brown) 2. Caucasian; of the region surrounding the Caucuses Mountains. trust fund (trust fund)., n. 1. Property, especially money and securities, held or settled in trust. See silver spoon racist (rsist), n., adj. 1. one harboring hate or disdain towards racial or ethnic groups other than ones own. prom (prom) n., U.S. Informal1. [short for PROMISCUITY] prep school (prep skl) adj.,+ n., 1. see below popped collar (popped koler) adj., + n., 1. see above poplock (poplok) v., 1. A dance style that involves rapid muscle tensing to give the appearance of rhythmic robotic motions. menopause (menepz), n. 1. Physiol. The period marked by the natural and permanent cessation of menstruation, occurring usually between the ages of 45 and 55. keg (keg), n. 1. a fatty cask, generally lled with beer. ex. I hear Jimmy is throwing down this weekend and he has a bomb Keg of Keystone Light. holy (hl) adj.,1. Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power; sacred. (See also TRUST FUND; KEG; GRIOT) griot (gree) n.,1. A storyteller in western Africa who perpetuates the oral tradition and history of a village or family. [French, alteration of guiriot, perhaps ultimately from Portuguese criado, domestic servant, from Latin cretus, one brought up or trained] gospel (gospel) adj.1. Of or in accordance with the Gospel; evangelical. 2. Of or relating to gospel music. Originally African American worship music. ow () n., v., 1. Rhythmic continuity of a piece of poetry or rap, including structure and delivery. 2. Ovarian emission of blood and eggs during a womans monthly menstruation. (Do not see MENOPAUSE) etymology (ete mole j), n., pl.,1. The origin and historical development of a linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements [Middle English etimologie, from Old French ethimologie, from Medieval Latin ethimologia, from Latin etymologia, from Greek etumologi: etumon, true sense of a word; see etymon + -logi, -logy.] crip walk (krip wok) n., v., 1. Native dance of the CRIP Tribe of Los Angeles, California.

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2. Adopted dance of PREP SCHOOL. (See also GANGS, PROM) bug (bug) v., n., 1. To be taken aback; literallyeyes to take on the appearance of an insects. 2. An insect or similar organism, such as a centipede or an earwig. See Regional Note at wire bug 3. A u or similar passing illness. 4. A defect in system design. asian american (zhen emeriken) n.,1. One born in America, of Asian ancestry 2. Yellow (derogatory) 3. Brown. african american (afriken emeriken) n., 1. One born in America, of African ancestry 2. Black 3. Brown.

Works Consulted
God, Various Others; The Bible, Dawn of Time Stillman, Frances. The Poets Manual and Rhyming Dictionary. New York, Crowell, 1965 Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. New York: Macmillan, 1998 Playboy, Girls of Summer (2 Volumes), Chicago, 1984 Sun Tzu; The Art of War, 500 BCE Ellison, Ralph Waldo; Invisible Man, New York: Random House, 1952. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition, Houghton Mifin Company, 2000 Cent, 50; Get Rich or Die Tryin, Shady/ Interscope Records, 2003

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Buy a Smile
Jesus, I have a confession to make I like to visit department stores for the free fragrance samples. But I can never buy a smile from the counter-girl says she cant sell me something she cant charge me fteen dollars to giftwrap. Besides, human interactions carry no commission and she heard a rumor the company handbook lists genuine emotion as sedition.

Needless to say (but let me get this off my chest) I tend to leave confounded Maybe someday Ill go into the desert for a week without food or water and found myself declare me CEO of mind and health. Apply for nonprot status I mean What Would Jesus Do? Carry libations back to the needy (and stay stationary at present station?) Or maybe climb the corporate ladder straight into heaven slangin salvation

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Picture it

Abraham

Moses

Jesus

Watsky * This religion works all too simple sit cross-legged humming incantations in front of Macys and Gimbles. A man of the cloth wraps himself in Versace up to the eyebrows and looks at the world through the pattern of the stitching the spindle sits idol Maybe we could be convinced to sew our robes ourselves if Ashton Kutcher started doing it All the hip celebrities got platinum coated sewing kits nevermind Rolex lets bling our sts with status thimbles And all I want is a friendly glance that tells me my outt is attering but no one seems to appreciate me for my wardrobe. I cant remember the last time I got any real warmth from a new jacket. Or when a sweater vest ever had my back. And I still cant buy a smile or rather I havent found a pusher. Youd think a grin would be easier to market than the inability to do so but Botox has the market cornered on controlling the corners of lips Make us think removing some unsightly lines
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Muhammad

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buys a wrinkle in time. That wearing a shiny new watch puts time on our hands That if we purge our wallets we too can be young and in love and making out with a crush in the backseat of our moms station wagon forget I said that No one truly appreciates a good used Volvo either I could sell it I suppose but no matter what the interest money in the bank tends not to appreciate me either. But maybe! Im running out of attractive answers. Someone kidnapped Casanova Buddha Ghandi Marvin Gaye has them locked in a vault in Luxembourg and is waiting for their price to rise above the dollar a competitor has Jesus and Moses and Muhammad tucked away underground in the Cayman Islands and is waiting for the prophets to rack up interest just need to switch to a marketing giant

Yeah! And maybe

I mean, maybe Universal Love and Respect

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they can try the rm that does the Sprite commercials and get Kobe Bryant to pitch a decent set of moral values to their clients But then again no one loves me for my ride and Im starting to think used karma salesmen have been picking us lemons

Something so sour must be quince pick your own and sit fully exposed in the garden contemplating how to pass off rock bottom as precious stone Well only start to smile when we appreciate the absurdity of the situation

Perverse hands clutch purses like the solutions are inside them inside all of us Merchants cast curses like rocks at glass churches and stock clergy emerge worshipping the Tao of Jones following the curves of the economy like heaving virgin geography Only this time the deed is done and the mother of the deowered is waving the bloody sheets out the window The crowd cheers wildly for the barbarism We know how ugly the union really was: this is an arranged marriage planned on a bar napkin by Ronald Reagan and a drinking buddy in the sixties But I dont say anything
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Ive been backed into the corner of my mouth; lips twitching unsure which direction to slip in Im no prophet barely Jonah Trapped within the walls of my skull I cant muster the courage to strike a match and explore myself I know the answers are inside me inside me Can inner children be removed by C Section? Tortured for the answers? The thing is sometimes I smile when I remember the nine year old who prefaces every statement with when I was a kid And maybe he was prophet in a sense innocence Smiling at everything

But someone should really tell him not to That could give him wrinkles and whos gonna pay for that?

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Then Whos the Man in the Yellow Hat?

When Art History Class moves too slow I move to the back row where I can be on the forefront of art history with a sloppy doodle and a big ego. History class tends to repeat itself over the years, and history tends to rewrite itself in the back of the classroom on especially slow days. This might be my masterpiece my Edward Hopper This might be my white wooden picket-fence house in the middle of suburbia, and theres a chance that I painted this in watercolor so I could blend the hues red the blues and bend the truth to make a pretty picture This could be my masterpiece, This could be Georges masterpiece My DaVinci or my DeMilo or my disciples Last Rites rst written in a t of heightened wisdom and ripped apart in remission.

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This might yet be my masterpiece Might be pretty for the wrong reasons My sky brighter than average my clouds lighter I am not a writer of wrongs this is just a picture of a summer on a farm or a beach house where everyones smiling and no ones raising their hands Its a white wooden picket fence house and Im living comfortably on the top oor creating for the sake of pretty This might be a doodle of the outskirts of a city or the sail of a slaveship this might be my masterpiece master peace master peace master peace master Painted in earthtones my house a halfway home my fence a Stonewall my farm a plantation backhoes bent backwards towards the sky asking salvation George, Greek for farmer, Ive never been asked to bend backwards into the soil peace master peace master peace master. In history class I learned about George Pullman, accomplished inventor of the

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Pullman Sleeping car in 1867, and I almost felt accomplished myself to share a name with The Man. In history class I didnt learn about the ten thousand Porters who were abused on the job and then denied a union by George Pullmans company. In history class I was never told that customers on Pullman cars called all ten thousand black porters George after the founder of the company who denied those very workers their dignity. And I almost felt accomplished to share a name with them. This is not a Picasso or a Van Gogh (Dude was fucking crazy) This is Georges masterpiece His (art) Story or something pieced together from magazine clippings and low-budget movies but in the back of the classroom every piece falls into place. Heres George and his house, with a little curl of smoke coming up from the chimney Heres George and his train, with a little curl of smoke coming up from the engine Heres George Dubya (for Watsky) and his white fence is picketing him Protesting

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an electric choir singing at a prison killing mechanical on key middle C to shining C belting the New National Anthem Ive suffered many trials, Jogged down many roads, The white mans burden, Can be a heavy load, I may be pale, But Ive got soul, No, seriously, Ive got soul (I know my Jay Z lyrics, Off the album that I stole) Imagine the three-part harmony the Maginot trinity (lower upper middle) classy divinity This is the 96th Thesis scratched with the pen that wrote the bill of rites of lower upper middle passage. Let this journey be the last rites of a land rst in ight Off the back of the train our problems get smaller. And here are the porters, WilliamJohnEdwardJamesSamuelAnthonyKeithHenryHarryBenn yArnoldEugeneRandallJacobMichaelJoshuaMatthewAndrewJosephDanAlexanderBenjaminR obertThomasElijahAaronIsaiahBrianCharlesNathanielVictorHaroldPaulPeterMartinMarvin GeorgeEtceteraEtceteraEtcetera

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Those porters carrying too much emotional baggage risk throwing their backs out and I cant help but think that Georges have carried a lot of American history W Because A in between the presidential bookends lies the Foreman S the farmer Jefferson and Clinton (with Weezy and P Funk) W. H The Bambino I The Beatle The King of Taxes N (circa 1776) B The King of Texas G (circa 1996) U T O N and a curious kid in history class who doesnt really matter except in his notebook where a piece of art however ill-conceived is plenty mastery enough. The Pullman the Pullmen S H

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Beirut
A bubble forms from hops and ambience dissipates then another follows stuttersteps to the surface and embraces the party Soon my brew is buzzing with CO2 particles like surfacing is the hip thing to do I dont know if carbon dioxide leads a better life sheltered in red plastic and Keystone Lite but Ive noticed that if it breaks its bonds and joins its brothers in the room it forfeits some degree of effervescence A bubble lingers on the bottom of my glass maybe motivated by inner convictions, maybe tethered down by surface tension Either way the corners of my mouth oat up I wish the bubble good luck and pour him into the hydrangea pot.

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Shadowland
kick. Nobody could understand how he got so much sound from such a tiny kit. 91.1 KCSM; Clifford Brown Jr.s voice crawls out of my speakers. Rattles around in the back seat and settles in the trunk. See when I rst checked Shadow out, no one was playing the small sets. You had Louie Bellson in Dukes band with ten toms, two bass drums. Shadow was playing with Basie at the time so you know he had to have a big sound. Pockmarked Stockton Street rocks the car, catapults my hi hat stand into my 18 kick. (thud) KCSM never talks about drummers. I thought Shadows kick was a tom turned sideways. Sam Adatos drum shop: Sam gives me the money. I leave the drums. A week ago and I wouldnt have believed that this transaction was transitive. I think back to thirteen when I gave Sam the money and left with the drums. I gave Sam the money because god damn thats a shiny drum set. Blue sparkle Ludwig. 1960s but not sure exactly whenI gave Sam the money because its a small kit but it has sound like a car crash. $750 for two toms and the kick. No hardware. Now heres a 1948 Monk recording Shadow made. This is Evidence with Milt Jackson on vibes and John Simmons on bass. The cross town ride from Sams takes fty years. Three out of four of us show evidence of agingThe beat up cymbal and hi hat stands Sam wouldnt take lie rusty and defeated. Im sure I have bags under my eyes. Or inside them because the tears wont come and that must mean theyre accumulating somewhere. Only Shadow seems to take the trip in stride. Rides delicious. Drum sticks and press rolls never sounded so goodShadow sets the table for Monk who nibbles sparingly. Apparently he thinks its still 1948 and you can buy dinner for a quarter. Sam gives me 500 dollars for the 3 piece drumset I bought from him six years ago plus my throne, hi hat cymbals and snare. This is a business after all. ride. KCSM dies a few miles after San Jose. By the time we hit the Central Valley 91.1 has birthed a nonstop Mariachi station. Nylon guitars and trumpet harmonies oat over miles of cropland. I keep the horizon lined up with the center of my speedometer, trying to hold the world steady on the tip of the needle. Its a gray eighty miles per hour the whole way. Out here clouds are midwives. Sink their ngers into the strawberry elds and stir. The overcast mass slinks low in the sky as if to tell me its backbreaking labor. I set my jaw and push the gas againI had slipped down to seventy and the world was tipping over. Ive righted everything by San Diego. Alone
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with my thoughts to contemplate the rst fty dollar tank of gas, progress does not come cheap. I take little comfort in the fact that Ive put a few more carbon particles into the air of the LA Basin. By the Arizona desert 91.1 has died again. I keep moving through the static like if I ease off the accelerator I could get tangled up and left for dead to rot on the web. I let the scrub brush rush past me. A couple Saguaros frame a lonely billboard. One Nation Under God. In the middle of the state 91.1 is born again. Welcome back to positive and encouraging K-LOVE! crash. I saw the spray paint on the doors. Pale pink, brown. Numbers in human colors. 5. 3. A small 24. Slanted 17 looked like a crooked smile. The meaning didnt register for ve or six blocks. 2/5. 1. I opened the window a crack when I felt the vomit coming up. These are human numbers. 7. 12/3. 5 again. Dead and missing numbers. 6/2. 9. The zeroes are missing too. No one seems to be looking for them. A beat up speed boat is beached on a lawn. The lawn is really just cement painted faded greenevery color is drained of life. Only the piles of rubble are growing. Tree branches. A rotting couch. A small pink spotted dress. snare. Thomas doesnt get pushed against lockers like the rest of the band. A couple freshmen even hang by U13 and press pens into his hand. Tom signs for them. Figures the UPS guy goes away after he gets Toms autograph so why not lowerclassmen? Tonights the big show and Toms been practicing his whole life. Woodshedding the last fty years out back with a hickory switch. Tom Sr. used to beat Tom Jr. out by the coops so its tradition. Toms seen tradition beat itself with a rst down marker so many times he thinks that progress comes in ten yard increments. The towns of Westlake and Pugerville pour into the stands as he tunes his 13 x 11 Yamaha Power Light Marching snare. kick. Sam cradles the snare as if its trying to get to sleep. Sam Adato Custom #25. Pure maple shell, medium depth, exible tone. It can tell you stories if you ask it right. Sams up to #251 and rarely sees his babies nd their way home. He cradles the snare and stares right through it because the acrylic head is transparent. But also because this isnt really a business. This is an orphanage and Sam needs to put food on the table. Shadow Wilson is widely regarded as one of the most under-recorded drummers of the centuryhe only lived to forty but hes legendary with those who know. This last piece is a tribute to Wilson. Its called Shadowland by crash. Just uptown past the row of National Guard, Bourbon Street is hopping. Its Saturday night after all. Pub crawlers on all fours after one too many taverns

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circumnavigate the ve block radius. The planets navel is at the bottom of their next tall Guinness. Drain your drink quick and you can catch the center of the earth on the tip of your tongue. Wash it down with a jello shot and feel it beating inside your chest. Your head is spinning. A couple of Margaritas and the planet is revolving around you. I cant tell if Bourbon Street is drowning its sorrows because the waters have receded or because no one around here knows how to swim. ride. An hour of Christian rock brings me into downtown Tucson. I stock up on salsa con queso and aguacates at Food City. I cant pick produce out like Alex and as I slice into the rst one with my house key in the parking lot I nd myself chewing on a piece of wood. I get my ll of K-LOVE. Hell meet you wherever you are/ Cry out to Jesus/ Cry out to Jesus. Im skeptical that Jesus is down to meet me in the parking lot of a Food City in central Arizona, but I listen on. Further progress kills K-LOVE after the New Mexico border. For now the interference is soothingthe gray sky explodes at sunset. Red and purple painted rock formations fading into shades of pink lift the heavens on their shoulders. I understand nding religion in these clouds. I see why the Hopi danced here to bring them. I feel less the pioneer riding overland on smooth asphalt in the safety of a station wagon than I did ten minutes ago, and the desire to ride with a Machete out the window hacking passing underbrush slips away. crash. Except for the French quarter, the city is quickly fermenting. I cant tell if its peaked yet. All I know is there seem to be a lot of pink faced white folks outside the bar strip with big smiles strapped to their faces. Maybe they got off easy because they earned it. kick. My carpet is still depressed when I get home, matted down where the bass drum used to sit. For once my room feels more empty than spacious. My suspended cymbal is retired in the far corner. Sam said it was over fty years old. crash. How could a group of people turn to such looting and savagery? Cant they just go to Morehouse and wear a tie to work? Get jobs at Exxon as oil drum majors? After all, Uncle Sam doesnt beat as hard on Uncle tom tom tom snare. Tom polishes the bright black shell every night until he can see himself in it. He used to see himself in the hard shellnow he sees Tom in the smooth skin. He tunes it up before games. The Power Lite model has 1.6 mm triple ange steel rims so its not too hard. Zinc alloy lug casings with reinforced walls and webbing. Strainer

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throw off with high carbon steel snare wires. ride. A bass thud nds its way through the radio static. Then another. Kicks shoot up like popcorn until a reggaeton station is born. 91.1 your home for the most hip hop and reggaeton in Southeastern New Mexico. I imagine the Hopi getting down to thisrain dance party with a bass thatll crack the parched dirt. The hours peel back like avocado skin and the signal stays strong. More gas, more time, more pounding claves. It fades eventually like they all dothis time right before El Paso. It fades smooth into Tim McGraw. I pull over and pass out before I nd out what happens to his pickup truck or dog or unfaithful lover. kick. The thick layer of tarnish and dirt served as supporting evidence. Six hours in the back yard and a pint of metal polish later the tiny hammered Zildjian logo started to resurface. A few more hours and its fresh from the factory. crash. A block from the Superdome a Louisiana Lotto Billboard has been vandalized. Someone still cares enough about the city to grafti it. Live shades of blue and purple emerge. Paint by numbers has been discarded for a mural of the globe with a trumpet in the middle. I keep my eyes peeled for the ghost of Louis Armstrong. kick. Three rivets dance like someone poured water on the stove. 22 inches of shiny grooved brass that double as a ride and crash. ride. The morning is charcoal again. Draws my route across the Lone Star state in slate. Shades of gray carry me into Westlake, Texas. Red and Blue carry the town and carry me out the next morning after the big loss. The country station didnt last long and 91.1 is soundless across the boundless chaparral. snare. The Westlake Chaps are losing their last football game of the year. Jojo tells me Chaps is short for Chapparallike the desert roadrunner, not the low-lying desert scrub. The stadium is dead quiet. This isnt right she tells meWestlake always wins. ride. A dreary silence carries Louisianatheres a prostrate armadillo legs up, roadkill on the side of the road. kick. Ive never had a ride like this one. This cymbal sizzles low and bright. Keeps going when youve asked it to stop but need to hear more. crash. Several notes escape the bell of the horn. Work their way into the air and rain down slowly. My window is still open and I feel a drop hit my forehead. snare. Jojo darts through the crowd and I follow in her wakewe pack in sardine-style with the rest of the school. Its the third quarter and that means that

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drumline makes a beeline for the student section. ride. The rst billboard past Baton Rouge is blown clear over into the swamp. I only know its still cloudy because the stars refuse to show. There arent many other cars on the road, and by the time New Orleans rolls forward towards me its empty midnight. I take the exit for the Superdome and ee, shaking, a couple hours later. snare. The two quad drummers, the bass drummers, cymbals and snares take the offensive line. We love drumline! kick. I probably could have gotten a couple hundred for it and that would have been four or ve free tanks of gasEl Paso to New Orleans. ride. Looking for a single star in the sky. These clouds are not beautiful. Rainmakers, killers. This is genocide. snare. Westlake loses by a touchdown. Toms music career ends with football season. kick. Ill never nd a ride with sound like that one. This is not a business. snare. Drumline wins. Drumline always wins. ride. 91.1 turns back into K-LOVE in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. crash. This is New Orleans and the day the music dies Im willing to bet theres going to be a hot band at the funeral. ride. The clouds move down to groundlevel to choke me. crash. ride. I cant see twenty feet ahead of me in the mist. kick. Shadow keeps riding snare. ride. tom. tom. tom. sam. kick,snare. ride. ride. ride.

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Burn Again
It is my 18th birthday when I rst smell the burning of a country I slip my biggest nger into the seam of an envelope and pull out a bald eagle and a mandate. See the smoke pouring from its beak and heating up the room and me doomed, doing just what Id expect from a young man regretting hed encountered time. Nothing. The eagle on my draft registration card winks at me like hes seen the same reaction from every 18-year-old boys face in the last 40 years. Nothing. Slow burning. I can smell Iraq smoldering all the way across our country, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean, see the tips of the ames shooting above the prime Meridian, and this city and I can see my own kitchen and my weatherworn breakfast table and my fresh new draft registration card falling to the re. And I know I dont have to do anything. I dont have to go to war, 44
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I dont have to take up arms, pick up my legs, I dont have to kill or be killed because as much as these ames are lling up our planet, our country, my kitchen, theres a layer of asbestos behind my stove that insulates me from them. * Its my rst ever poetry slam when I realize that no matter how heavy the blaze becomes there will always be people with buckets of water. And I try to understand what it would be like to join the Navy. I think back to March 15th, 2003 and see Stephen on the mic again holding the ames outside at bay and wonder if they have poetry readings in boot camp. And I try to see the cinders in Bayview and Hunters Point and men downtown holding matches and cans of gasoline. And I try to see that all Im doing is shutting my front door when thousands of Americans are being drafted through the back. But all I can bring into focus are born again

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born again born again innocents with me in the middle, feeding the ames and playing the ddle Burning CDs because were too consumer savvy to pay for our own music Burning books because theyre not Windows compatible Burning calories, salaries stack up and were not skinny enough for that Armani suit to buy it, but we could burn a lot of fat cells on the Atkins diet burn again burn again burn again until were innocent again until were pretty again until we reconstruct the damage in the city And I can see that manifest destiny leaves stretch marks, valleys and ridges, Wed go back to where we started but we burned all of our bridges. And sometimes Id rather leave the explaining to someone thats seen the problem rst hand instead of screaming my rendition of the blazes from secondary sources and handy rhyming phrases So next time I see someone on stage wearing sincerity on their sleeve Im locking the door and not letting them leave.

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Chain Reaction/ Hand Me America

It all starts with an act of violence. or ends with one. There are places outside of ourselves where good intentions operate like rusty hinges only heard from in periods of transition Where only the sinister is well oiled and carefully maintained. In these places rebuttals are mufed and vertical movement takes place by slipping through cracks in the system. It usually starts with an act of violence or is woven by a countless number of them. Each stitch demanding another another another Each link demanding two more. This is just part of a chain reaction as in bullet enters gun leaves gun enters body leaves corpse Man creates chains creates boats creates guns Hate begets hate waste begets want history begets the broken pieces of tomorrow.

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Ezechias begot Manasses. And Manasses begot Amon. And Amon begot Josias. There are places in the New World where good intentions operate like rusty hinges. And Josias begot Jechonias and his brethren in the transmigration of Babylon. Beliefs are not forced onto others but opened slowly from deep within the self. And after the transmigration of Babylon Jechonias begot Salathiel. And Salathiel begot Zorobabel. And Jacob begot Joseph The husband of Mary Of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Praise the lord. As in spirituals begot jazz begot rock begot hip hop .or something Sticks and stones became slings and arrows became 9 millimeters Smith and Wesson says they can be used for hunting in the urban jungle * Gap Old Navy Banana Republic started with one cable-knit cashmere pullover

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Starbucks McDonalds Wal*Mart started with one store Now they are chains that wrap around the planet. For gunpowder to ignite properly in your Smith and Wesson Firearm, the chain reaction between charcoal and nitrate must be preceded by the sulfuric compound breaking its molecular bonds Shutting your weak eye while aiming may help your marksmanship! Shutting both eyes while aiming will denitely improve your marksmanship! For the bullet to be expelled properly, the sulfur must break its bonds The only natural reaction to being chained is to attempt to break the bonds Wal*Mart regrets to inform its passionate gun enthusiasts that we will no longer be selling standard rearm ammunition in our retail outlets, however we are pleased to announce that you can now buy them online, and for our younger patrons, we still carry a wide array of powerful air guns and ries. If god created guns then why shouldnt we use them? God created sticks and stones became slings and arrows became your brand new Smith and Wesson rearm! Its alright well waive the background check! Maybe an upgrade is in order Sometimes a handgun just feels so insufcient

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Wal*Mart is pleased to announce that our retail stores will now be carrying standard combat cannons You can purchase fuses on aisle three next to the garden hoses and both pellets and cannonballs right below the water balloons They make great conversation pieces and of course are fully functional Who says you need to captain a warship from the 1850s to own a ne piece of artillery? Your cannon may need to be chained to your replace to avoid a heavy kickback that could damage your drywall (Wal*Mart sells chains too) It all starts here in the corporate boardroom where dreams come true In these places good intentions operate like rusty hinges only heard from in periods of transition And we are never in transition if we are constantly expanding Wal*Mart is pleased to announce well be opening our rst ever location in Antarctica * Hand me a pencil and an ice pick and Ill tell you whats wrong with America Hand me a dead canary an empty mineshaft an abandoned boomtown

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Hand me a hole with tomorrow at the bottom and Ill ll it with water blood and crushed leaves. Hand me a drum tted with brass and palm fronds and I will play it. Ask the hollow of your instrument and it will tell you it has not been beaten. A drum is not beaten but triumphant it is not beaten but joined A drum cannot be beaten just befriended. If you chain a bodys legs together a body will still learn to dance. I cant dance Show me a group of people hammering I dont need the work and I am willing to bet they are also singing I have no range If they were picking rocks on the top of a purple mountain in a quarry or an empty mineshaft I would chip away at the American dream wedged between the charcoal and fools gold. I have no business with business but this is my business above all else On the mountaintop I am not above all else

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We are not above all else staring purple into the horizon Im giving me props like We are off the chain at the bottom of a dry riverbed breaking bonds with ice picks singing all the while Soon we are overowing its banks moving across the Savannah making considerable progress towards the capitol Washington submerged Today a tidal wave struck A poet wrote about it A reserved eulogy was conducted A band played at the funeral like second-line like New Orleans like Triumph like each snare was growing new daisies in the plains, like each booming bass drum pattern was raising ghost towns from the dead Hand me a widower mourning in black and Ill tailor his outt for the afterlife party Its one thing to see from the mountaintop and another to see oneself on the mountaintop We can sing across the Pacic from here This drum can reach can talk

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It has not been beaten It is teaching the chained to dance Teaching chains to dance Teaching us to lead how to breathe re and then plunge it down our throats how to swallow our pride Hand me America the beautiful and I will sing from the mountaintop Write you the French Alps the Gobi Desert the Brazilian Rain Forest Hand me a drum tted with brass and palm fronds and I will play for you a village outside of Madrid Mount Kilimanjaro a lifeboat in the middle of the Caspian Sea the Antarctic tundra Hand me America the beautiful, and I will build you a globe hand me a lended land and I will lend you a hand a pencil and an ice pick. Give me a hand and Ive got three hands. Im already off the chain because I had a free hand to pick the lock.

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Same Page
The simple solutions always have a catch strike a match and watch compassion wing itself out the window like a frightened bat Its easy to wax that we got the top tax bracket throwing up food stamps for backup insisting that the world is at Saying fuck Copernicus fuck welfare everything I need to know I learned in business school and the campus lawn denitely didnt bend over the horizon. Post-Grads point to the maps in their textbook Atlases as proof Its easy to explain that in the Mercator Projection South America and Africa are practically the size of England. That the world is at in a map in an atlas in a classroom in Massachusetts and you cant t the whole world on the same page Its too easy to soak up the sun on Marthas Vineyard on the Atlantic and let the Western Hemisphere run Euro-concentric circles around the rest of the planet 54
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Asking why run when we can y? Its easy for jetsetters to litter out the window above the globe like cabin pressure was a metaphor for Lincolns American dream blown open so we can go and dump trash into the ocean and stratosphere and buy it back wrapped in plastic and glass shards bartered from Ghana pawned off on Rwanda Why cant the mallrat in Nowhere, Nevada drop her shopping bags and wrap her arms around the kid who stitched her Prada? Maybe I should drop the mantra because odds are a sweatshop worker in Togo used his last thread of dignity to sew the logo on my polo Ive been in summer homes lled with kids tted in Manolo from Lesotho who dont know that Nagasaki is not the hot new sushi shop in Soho. That their Reeboks didnt walk themselves down the assembly line Maybe we would understand if every laborer went on strike and the boxes from Footlocker came with disassembled footwear like Heres an idea!

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A do-it-yourself-shoe-store We can call it Nikea! Workers bent in prayer This is bad religion a back of the classroom note tied to the leg of a pigeon A pipe dream A y dream Maybe jetsetters will abandon aircraft and hop on the backs of doves the backs of frightened bats rise above the cumulus and toss accumulated stacks of greenbacks to the masses gathered below And I try to tell myself if the Yen can rise above the dollar if the Euro can rise above the dollar if the Swiss Franc can rise above the dollar then so can we If you say so but Ill believe it when I see Dick Cheney in my Nikea paying for Jordans with pesos I see the messiah rocking a sermon at the top of the G8 summit A poetry slam in Mozambique with folks spitting in Swahili ten thousand mother tongues translated from English Gavin Newsom repaving a pothole in Thailand

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See its easy to t the world on the same page t the world on the same page t the world on the same page t the world on the same

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page.

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I am Cupid
Lets say Im cupid The liaison of love The soldier of swoon The constable of crush Lets say Im cupid breaking into your heart strapped with semi-automatic infatuation demanding show me some love or break yoself! Omnipotential I could shoot an arrow through the back of a man standing in front of a mirror watch him fall in love with his reection and attempt to get busy I could put a bottle of cristal on ice blast some Jill Scott at the White House at night and hook John Ashcroft up with Condoleezza Rice If I wanted to I could work things out between Justin and Britney Bobby and Whitney and if I couldnt nd someone man enough for the Statue of Liberty I could break off the Washington Monument for her enjoyment because after all a woman knows her own needs best. I could tell you why girls at dances wear uncomfortable stilettos they know theyll take off after ve minutes

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I could tell all the guys out there why so many girls want you as bad as you want their best friend And I could tell you why all women without exception make sweeping generalizations I could if I wanted to, but forgive me this shit just seems a little bit trivial these days. The world as we know it is caving in on itself and Im wasting the almighty power of love on the heavyhearted bourgeoisie? I think its high time for a more goal-oriented cupid Cupid Remix international edition Im gonna shoot an arrow through Pakistans heart and watch it go make out with India in the back seat of a Camaro Im gonna sprinkle love dust over the Middle East and see Israel and Palestine moaning in the throes of passion on the West Bank Hear George W. Bush ask Saddam Hussein to be his valentine Im gonna turn every embargo into an open invitation See DC and Havana get in bed together And light up a post-coital Cuban cigar in celebration

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Teach Turkey and Bulgaria to Greece each other up and go at it Support the nontraditional relationships: Australia and Iceland go long-distance Beijing and Tianjin go same sects Im gonna show the South Seas how to loosen up, get kinky. Got New Guinea Panting to Indonesia I love it when you call me big Papua Bolivias nally going down on Argentina Pyongyang went out of its league and popped the question To Japan France and Italy gave beef the boot And are nding new meaning in European Union I know Sweden needs a Swedish massage and since Ireland, England and Wales have failed to couple up how about a mnage a trois? Try saying it I am cupid and if I wanted to I could

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Acknowledgements

My Family. Mom, Dad, Simon, Grandma Syde Adam Mansbach (!) Beau Sia, Geoff Trenchard, Bamuthi, Lorna Strand, Jeff Chang, James Kass, Aya, Adriel, Rafa, 616, Get Live, MFQ, Arturo, Paul, Joannie, Hodari, Elz, Mush, Alexandrina, Fellow interns, SPOKES San Francisco, Youth Speaks, UHS, everyone whos inspired me, and all my other friends

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George Watsky is a writer and performer from San Francisco now living in Boston. Watsky was featured on season six of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. He is the 2006 Youth Speaks Grand Slam Poetry Champion, a 2006 Brave New Voices National Poetry Slam Champion, and a performer in six consecutive Youth Speaks Grand Slam Finals. His one man show, So Many Levels, has been presented in San Francisco, Vermont, Boston, and at the Hip Hop Theater Festival Critical Breaks Series in New York City. He is a Robert Redford Sundance Summit winner for poetry on climate change and was awarded an honorary graduate of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership in Melbourne, Australia. Watsky has been a featured performer at conferences and universities in more than twenty states (and Australia), at the Apollo Theater in New York, the San Francisco Opera House (twice) and has been featured in numerous print and digital media outlets. He has shared billing with Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Matisyahu, Bonnie Raitt, Lyfe Jennings, Saul Williams, Eddie Griffin and President William Jefferson Clinton. Undisputed Backtalk Champion is his first collection of poetry. George spends his spare time playing street hockey, pogs, and generally mouthing off. Please visit his website: www.georgewatsky.com

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First Word Press

Youth Speaks established First Word Press in 2003 to publish the rst books of emerging writers. First Word Press exists to redene the American canon and recognize young writers as valid and relevant contributors to the literary continuum. All books and CDs feature the collected poems, plays, short stories, and other writings of the best emerging writers who have participated in Youth Speaks mentoring programs, after-school workshops, open mics, poetry slams and other programs. First Word Press authors and artists include Gabe Crane, Ayoka Stewart, Stephen Pickens, Niema Jordan, Eli Marienthal, Chinaka Hodge, George Watsky, Katri Foster, and Adriel Luis. The guest editors of First Word Press include Paul S. Flores, Kim Addonizio, Adam Mansbach, Genny Lim, Leticia Hernandez, Dalia Rubiano Yedidia, and James Kass. Writers interested in nding out more about First Word Press can visit us at: www.youthspeaks.org Special thanks to Mai-Lei at reDene Design and Adriel Luis at The Funky Pixel for book design layouts.

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About Youth Speaks

Founded in 1996, Youth Speaks is the leader of the national Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development movement. In over 40 cities, more than 250,000 young writers 13 to 24 years old are speaking their own messages through this powerful medium to millions of their urban and suburban peers. Politically aware, critically engaged, and unafraid to speak, young people are picking up the pen and grabbing hold of the microphone, moving themselves into positions of power claiming voice when theyve been voiceless, and access where theyve been sidelined.
For complete information on Youth Speaks and our many programs, please visit www.youthspeaks.org

Vision By shifting the perceptions of youth by combating illiteracy, alienation and silence, we can create a global movement of brave new voices bringing the noise from the margins to the core. Mission Youth Speaks empowers the next generation of leaders, self-dened artists, and visionary activists through written and oral literacies. We challenge youth to nd, develop, publicly present and apply their voices as creators of social change. At Youth Speaks, the voices of youth matter. Committed to a critical, youth-centered pedagogy, Youth Speak places students in control over their intellectual and artistic development. We are urgently driven by the belief that literacy is a need, not a want, and that literacy comes in various forms. Youth Speaks believes that having knowledge, practice, and condence in the written and spoken language is essential to the self-empowerment of an individual. We ll a need for creative approaches to literary arts education and literacy in general; we believe it is crucial to provide spaces where youth can undergo a process of personal growth and transformation in a program that enriches their educational, professional, and leadership skills. As we more deeply move into the 21st Century, oral poetry is helping to dene the American

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Voice. By making the connection between poetry, spoken word, and classroom settings, Youth Speaks aims to deconstruct dominant narratives in hopes of achieving a more inclusive, and active, learning experience. Believing that young people have the tools to take control of their lives through language, Youth Speaks encourages youth to express themselves using their own vernacular. The idea of talent or being talented is often viewed as a mysterious force bestowed on a given individual, rather than the result of hard work, practice, and commitment. We Believe in Voice We believe it is critical that young people have opportunities to nd, develop, publicly present, and intentionally apply their voices. Silence is a powerful thing when chosen, but incredibly oppressive when forced upon its victims. We Believe in Continuum We are committed to providing opportunities for youth to engage with the tradition of oral literacy and oral poetics so as to immortalize the voices of todays young writers. We Believe in Community Youth Speaks reects diversity and engenders a community of young artists who reach across demographic boundaries toward self-exploration and growth, providing a platform where conicts are resolved on the page or the stage, rather than on the street. We Believe in Contemporary Culture Youth Speaks is committed to the written and spoken word, innovating our program so that it remains accessible and attractive to the population we serve, and reects their stories without leaving out the stories that have come before. We Believe in Individual and Social Transformation Youth Speaks provokes movement from silence to empowerment based in liberatory pedagogy and youth development. We intend to democratize a civic population of youth by giving them a platform to speak. We Believe in Excellence We challenge young people to nd their own voices, to work hard to apply them, and to do so responsibly. We ask youth to not be afraid of their own potential; we promise them we wont be.

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FIRST WORD SERIES

Available on First Word Press

I Dont Owe You Anything by Ayoka Stewart (2004) $9.95 Collected Poems edited by James Kass Both Sides by Stephen Pickens (2004) $9.95 Collected Poems edited by Melinda Corazon Foley Thoughts For A Lonely Supermarket by Gabe Crane (2004) $9.95 Collected Poems and Other Works edited by Paul S. Flores Based on a True Story by Niema Jordan (2005) $9.95 Spoken word CD edited by Paul S. Flores For Girls With Hips by Chinaka Hodge (2006) $9.95 Collected Poems edited by James Kass Tiny Little Maps to Each Other by Hazel Kleingrove, Amelia Rosenman, Dalia Rubiano Yedidia, Joellene Buccat, Kirya Traber (2006) $9.95 Collected poems edited by Kim Addonizio How To Make Juice by Adriel Luis (2006) $9.95 Collected Poems edited by Genny Lim Undisputed Backtalk Champion by George Watsky (2006) $9.95 Collected poems edited by Adam Mansbach First, The Good News by Katri Foster (2006) $9.95 Collected poems edited by James Kass Hearts Sized Like Cities: The Youth Speaks Anthology (2006) $9.95 Collected Poems edited by Dalia Rubiano Yedidia and Spokes Publications Committee

FIRST WORD PRESS Available at www.youthspeaks.org, or by calling 415-255-9035 Credit cards accepted