The Tini Martini thing...

Went to my first Chicago show, and my first poetry performance in 2 years last night. I can't say I killed it, but I did well. I hit a familiar favorite with "Woman's Lib," and I tried my newest poem out (posted below). I couldn't get through the second one cause I was cut short, but I had some heads nodding. So I realized what I have to do to get my poetry heard. Simply get some beats. I could rap if I wanted to, and I gotta get a couple of songs to grab the crowds attention. So at the risk of being like Drake and free-styling with a blackberry... which isn't free-styling at all it's just writing on a whim and flowing when I get the chance, I'm gonna go at it. I figure if I put down a couple of verses over a nice beat, I'll draw 'em in, and then I can lay it down with the good poetry I know I have... not to toot my own horn. But, stay posted to the blog because by the end of the weekend, I'll have some videos of my poems up. Just a vocal representation of what you see posted here, and on my facebook page.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned. That's my Peace. The Madam.

Untitled Short Story

“Where is Riley?” “Where is Riley?,” she kept mumbling to herself creating a low baseline against the symphony of sirens. The question asked through squinted eyes to no one in particular, although there were plenty of people to ask questions too as amber and tangerine painted the walls of 312 Carnegie soot gray.

This was an ordinary fire, well, as ordinary as fires could be. It posed no challenge for the men who rushed in and out of blazes for a living. It was not on a busy street, so it did not stop traffic, and the twenty year old building was relatively unremarkable so the historic society would take no notice. Many fires had raged before, larger and grander than this, but as water baptized the brick and mortar of the basic two-flat building, she had never seen anything more superior. And as she sat on a gurney, interrogating herself, she tried to remember the last sounds she heard before everything turned to dust around her.

It was a normal day, after arguing with her alarm clock for the third time, she finally conceded defeat as she laid in the glow of early winter morning. Feeling the warm body beside her she smiled briefly, before reaching down with her toes to slide on her house shoes. A grumble of frustration sliped from her lips as she thought, “what’s worse than an alarm at 6:15am? A cold greeting to the morning.” Cringing from the thoughts of her bare feet on hard wood flooring, she tip-toed into the bathroom to reluctantly start her day.

I know I talk whole lot, but not when it comes to my feelings for you, so, let me put it this way…

Just sit back and listen as I tell you that Public E is more than just a dude with a clock,

and the Last Poets ran New York, way before Jay hit the block

- no disrespect to 50

Yeah, you can hate, but Solider Boy and Wayne get the party to pop,

and while we talking ‘bout love don’t get me started on Common.

I love Hip-Hop so much, I only date dudes who listen to rock,

- that’s why I call you Lupe

So you can pick me like Hendricks and I can rap you like Pac

- no disrespect to Biggie

But I’ve always loved Pac

Now that I’ve broken the rules and said the same thing 2 times,

Imma step right back into my rhyme,

Put it on one leg at a time,

Jumpin’ up and down cause I can’t fit all THIS into a line.

I’m just trying to have a conversation,

But for some reason my thoughts keep coming out cut and pasted,

I guess I’m just emotionally wasted.

Trying so hard to keep my nose stopped up,

I can’t even taste it.

Now I’m down to three senses,

And since I read that good neighbors are made by good fences,

I keep my guards up.

My headphones on,

Just call me Ms. Cudi cause I’m In My Zone.

Bass way up, Treble way down,

Head rocks as speakers and heart beats bang to the same sound

until they break.

These words I’m spittin’, I have no problem with givin’

until they take

Bite, mix it and parlay it into a thousand dollar fake,

Quarter Pound, Super-Size and Parfait it into McDonald’s Cake,

So, I’ll have a career in restaurant sales if this whole poetry thing don’t take

And when I give my feelings to you, I fear the same fate.

You got my mind going, over stimulated like a brand new hype

Your hip-hop, underappreciated like a starry night.

Yeah, everybody wanna play with it like NBA Live when you unlock Mike,

Yeah, everybody can see it like it’s on Skype,

But can you feel it like a fist in a fight?

When that pitch hits the diaphragm just right

That speaker sings, as this speaker beams,

and those sounds dream of you.

It’s like the feeling of a fresh 16,

hear it and you’re just busting at the seems,

gotta listen to it three more times to see what it really means,

throw it on repeat to learn every noun, verb and in-between,

close the doors,

crack the windows,

turn up the volume until the numbers stop,

yeah, that’s my hip-hop.

I can’t get enough,

I can listen to anything, but it’s my preference,

Even though it hurts my heart to hear a bogus verse or a broken reference,

I can’t let past wrongs take out good music by deference.

If hear something on the radio I don’t like, I just change the station,

so why can’t life be art’s imitation?

As an artist who paints with metaphors and word play,

I’m so afraid that something will get lost in translation.

It’s easy to tell things with complication, cause I can blame it on the verbs,

It’s easy to curse and use words with derogatory notions, cause I can blame it on the terms,

It’s easy to let the beat bump til’ I feel it through the ground, and refuse to turn it down, cause I can blame it on the sound.

But when all that’s left is blank verse and clean lines,

Hip-Hop don’t fail,

they say it shoots and kills and fills up jails,

but it still prevails.

Because I am love, and you are Hip-Hop,

These words are power,

I part adverbs,

slay prepositions,

and make conjunctions roar!

No one can cage this,

There are no dictionary pages

that can hold my phrases,

so with every song, and sample, and transition,

I have permission – to murder the English language

Because I am love, and you are Hip-Hop, and I am a poet

So I have Poetic License

- to kill

these feelings I have for you.

They make me crazy,

they make me want to stand up and

- shout from every building

- cipher on every corner

- freestyle in every city

just in hopes that you will hear me

- seek just to find me

- get my demo and rewind me

- call me everyday to remind me

all the reasons why you signed me

I’m in the booth every day cause I’m hungry

So you can mix, chop and screw me,

even auto tune with infuser,

I guess what I’m trying to ask is…

Will you be my Co-Producer?