1. rabblerouse they couldn't predicate upon a precipice bet, i feel like Perseus-- but less merciful i'm thirstiest, most of all impervious the Wordsmith gets knee-deeper, beleagured his burdens at will: summon purpose "i'm weaker when the light is on" portion of the pie chart i share with tweakers wearing nylon i might build you a Worthwhile Fortress with borrowed resources on the front door we painted a picture of the meek tortoise. world-picturing, place-making, gate-keeping I DO MY BEST SCHEMING IN THE LATE EVENING I WRITE POEMS AND BUILD SUITS OF ARMOR FOR SUICIDE NOTE AUTHORS the melungeon porch monkey accompaniment got caught wonderin' out loud, again. you scrawled the word, "discursive" in cursive and called yourself, "subversive" WE ALL BELLY LAUGHED i wrote this rap from Mike Eagle's helipad... now watch me dance. now watch me dance. 2. souvenir (feat. Hemlock Ernst) it's the lazy theologian the clumsiest poet stumbling through the Poplar Grove and still he doesn't even notice. though, his toes bled a little... bathrooms are sacred space if faith is under the left nipple? that's the king!!! no Martin Luther, you might of seen him riding on a green martian scooter clutching a Hewlett-Packard computer. indeed. he's ageless like Treva Throneberry i don't worship norse gods or stone faeries. at home on a cracked iPhone, alone and hairy casting Postmodernist Abracadabra and it starts like this........ i thought they might have killed me. so, i read the Hagakure on a very long drive from Chicago to here. holding viking spears, and i cried a lot of tears but you know i kept an Oxbow Lake in my thoughtful cave and we both thought in shades of gray or maybe even monochrome this monotone is great! til the monotony sought its own philosophy to justify the dimples in its face in its face? so we made a couple sticker packs and pretended we didn't hear white fans say, "NIGGER" fast uhmmmmmmmm there's pollo in this menudo i'm the newest fellow in this group tho and they're all feasting on my naievete i guess it's picture day. i guess it's pizza day. if purity of heart means to will only one thing???? then you have some explaining to do. i can rap like an afgan. i can rap like my last name was black man. i can rap like the son of Mike Ladd. let me take out a full page Vice ad that supposes it might ask if underground hip hop was just one tight fad this is an all seeing eye, eye-patch if i might add. 3. zen scientist (feat Myka 9) it's him who wrote the Tao of the Pessimist as thespians maneuver through the Now and its Messiness. i've grown weary of their kindnesses, the addled zen scientist with the inwardly infinite capacity for mindfulness this is a kite shield to protect you from complacency i stand adjacent to the vagrancy no vacancy out in the streets with poems and guns the argot of the ergonauts it's enough to send kisses down your arm like Gomez how he dazzle with the bafflegab Sisyphus surmounts the aggrocrag cantillating grace and they can't keep my pace and they can't keep my pace. at the back of a long line like always in the recesses, receding this lawn chair creaks when i'm leaning the microcosm between velour and velvet when the ache becomes a kaiser helmet CC me when you supersize your intentions i'll be in the frozen food aisle until then it's a lead lid on this pillbox i, plan on living until the bills stop budding curmudgeon with cudgel who bludgeons the kerfuffle of the welterweights that's understated. we broke so it's lawn chairs long stares gloomy never forlorn learn the old forms honor the old Gods via iPod don't stop the body rock i have decided in good faith: to let my soul fly. Mr Yuk lets his soul fly Ken Sara Weewah lets his soul fly Mr. Kenford has been known to let his soul fly i know DJ Syndicate lets his soul fly the Kleanerz are so fly! Guantanamo Bosch lets his soul fly Jacob Bluefinger, well i bet he lets his soul fly Dugan Nash been known to let his soul fly Black Orpheus i'm sure he lets his soul fly that boy SKIPIO he lets his soul fly of course the Wise Owl, Himself he lets his soul fly who was once called "Flows-a-Million" yes, he's so fly. 4. re: animist (orange tent) reading Nausea in an orange tent make mental note: first time feeling a foreign sense i'm going to ask my heroes about their debts today and which ones exactly they've left unpaid this is a diagram about that one time. reading Nausea in a tent with a girl named Sascha and i'm bent you should ask ya nigga bout his debts this is a diagram about that one time this is a diagram about that one time repeated listens of Mike Ladd's Nostalgialator coincide with preference to have been born nower than later it's the lesser not the greater that savors any type of power dumb niggas forgot they mathematics weak rappers are asthmatics bumpkin savages rap on vocal tracks. peace but it's back to the metaphysics flash half a rhythm and decapitate a metacritic showboat rappers get stood up in they studio i heard Wal-mart signed Jason DeRulo then dropped him cos he couldn't sell crewsocks and refused to adopt the umlaut that's when i flashed an odd smile and said i only wear argyle playing Pile in a smartcar dummy thinks he's artsy i only wear chartreuse when i'm boxing. noble hawk eye mumble like i'm peabrained usually identified by the ghee stain moved to California to mispronounce weed strains. stupid. 5. an encyclopedia this is an encyclopedia containing the latin names of the ugliest parts of my insides i'm choosing to use it like a compass in times of peril no one taught me the language of rap song i was born speaking it. my last name means Blacksmith... and yours? oh, yeah i'm not a scofflaw either born from the racial tensions between nigger-rigs and MacGyvers the difference between Quantum Leap and Sliders that is, if you have an eye for the mid-90s scifi sitcom used to listen to Myka 9 rip songs and think, "gee mom this seems... strong. good." rap song writing qua Black art aspiring now i only write in green ink like matrix code peace to the Wahoo Monastery my destiny is to write four bars in black licorice convert that into one stack then set out to redefine the term "Nigger rich" i'm very hungry. done asking for table-scrapplings from neighbors who live just above me. trapping seems in the vein of hunting, i abstain from only the one thing. i'm so sorry! how could i be so clumsy to, thrust you inside a language-game without affording the proper trumpeting? might make a beat from machete metal clang i mastered the yeti ghetto slang like nicknames of nimble and tip of nipple metal fang milo last seen with a poor sport with more ass got a passport to import more for the ore stash short leash, long lash in Long Beach with bombast i palm palm trees in my thought path this is a mason jar containing a last laugh. it isn't at all clear to me why i should be alive Kenny Segal's drums are not quantized and presently that gives me purpose i know what's worthless and worthwhile and how to build the fortress. i've always known. and then he opened his mouth so wide all his teeth was showing rows pews banquet halls of teeth and he goes, "i got this one song it sounds like" people of color, coloring. people of color, coloring. today they shook me down to my core. it's nigger killer galore out there. the truth is a golden rectangle i tried to swallow, look at the mouth tears, my nigga i'm really out there all 5/5ths of my personage what kind of burden could be worse than this? how can i carry all these dead people of color? all these Black and brown and yellow bodies Darrien Hunt cosplaying was killed for his hobbies and i love Mugen too. that's the thing, i love Mugen, too. they gave us Mavis Beacon and slavish deacons. who predicate upon who pontificate upon who conversate upon but never hand-grenade a palm they find refuge muttering the patriarchy is on autopilot! with prayer beads and solemnity we, urban outfitters would like to make a t-shirt out of your just born soliloquy. the raw amount of psychic data that i fail to process staring at cinnamon toast crunch boxes. this is an encyclopedia containing the latin names of the ugliest parts of my insides i'm choosing to use it like a compass in times of peril no one taught me the language of Black man i was born speaking it. my last name means Blacksmith... and yours? 6. going no place (feat Elucid) they filthy fucks what else? mad clumsy saw him muttering in the corner about something yes capital-S bless, then grapple with stress the vest was chartreuse bet, he's part sleuth and dark-art artisan to boot partition the loot disperse to veteran crews then reinstate the old rules warn the cynical sky scanner: the Black man's Bruce Banner is an iCamera. going no place because i remember yesterday once wore his hair with a part like the Renegade a little darker but less handsome than Bobby Sixkiller came with two hands and smacks for Mac Millers i shot John Wayne like Praswell scared straight bet them shitstains in your Carhartts was heartfelt on the perfect day i tat my crew before seppuku on any kind of list, my name is no where next to you bet, in group photos i wear the turtleneck calmly smile with two lungfuls of purple cess we could hit a joog or a lick turn your mans into food with my fists if a mog fuck with me he's in a dune or a ditch best believe. that's not boasting you were used to me rapping my booklist indeed a nigga might look bookish you could be next in line to catch a hooked fist but nah, right? and my little sisters out front playing hopscotch and she's like "Dap Dunlop don't why i oughta i'm the fly dundada i'm the fly dundada" 7. true nen (feat Open Mike Eagle) before i wrote my first rap i learned how to be totally silent made a necessity of virtue and galavanted as though pious gee golly, that sure was dumb of me. these nike gumsoles sure are comfy O, God! there i go stunting! Good Will Hunting or Good Will Mitchell? that is Riley Lake i, pull out 2 blades and decapitate a smarmy snake when i moved to LA my father gifted to me a broadsword he said, "use it in times of peril." my mentors are 2 dark moors with more direction than dartboards we use our minds like pencils we dress like spice merchants preaching Black aesthetic gospel Michael called it art rap, so you wouldn't find it hostile. Kenny Segal freaks the SP very well we be zoomin, he got that true nen. i feel like Basho with this vest on. scratch that, i feel like Hisoka because my heads wrong. i don't drink pepsi-cola cos my teeth aren't strong i write rap songs for a living i don't have health insurance this machine runs off hood magic and endurance concentrate i'm conscious of the pain and choosing to giggle quietly all my niggas are miserly that's true. 8. napping under the Echo Tree slizz. when i was boxing with Vallejo in Albany Park it's already dark and i'm scared of that. or was it with Hank Dumas? in Oakland, by the lake where i openly argued with my fates coin purse bulging loin cloth bulging how is it these words are my ointment still? measuring years by tooth decay and ruthless stratagems played in the game of nights i would describe myself as the Yoshimitsu of Boyle Heights most boastful over bowls of rice like i'm Caeser with the soul of it's just a feeling really. that being that has her being in pointing at what is. admittedly, i stare at her fingers. SOUL: herein defined as that in which Spirit has its Being. SOULPOWER SOULPOWER SOULPOWER this is the green horse for rap. i'm putting my money on the green horse for rap. listen! the beginning is the illusion it is the iron veil conceiling the origin but here i am with a key! this is protected. steadfast, intimate concentration i've been gathering gathering more and more of the less and less in the wastelands gathering the waning in my being gathering everything's constant intention. that, how did he say? gathered, all gathering thinking that recalls. that devotional organ, my memory. i remember. the riddle written on my ribcage the eternal recurrance of the same the Being of all Becoming the hammer and the heaviest thought banged into absurdity. i wasted my life microwaving jalapeno poppers. a love song for whom socks represent eudaimonia. 9. yomilo yo, milo why you always rap in passcodes? cos they assholes who don't deserve the whole. so they fiddle with their portions, i fiddle with my organs on parchment. yes, i roll with dark men failed draft dodgers and niggas teaching at Dartmouth we was lurkin' Michael Larkin with the Midas Touch eat at Perkins and resign to never being much. that's the only truth worth memorizing so i memorized it. then made a memorandum to try and signify it give it meaning make it worthwhile wear black beanies make mix CDS with Turnstile join a messageboard when your house burns down find your forever shelter in the iCloud follow the winding path yo, milo why you front like your enlightened? because presently it's advantageous please tell me what the bad man's name is that's the same box that my 404 came in do you think your soul will fit in there? a metaphor about the winter's air deployed via lawn chair in Los Angeles when Al and i was eatin all-air-sandwiches i'll take B for the Bando and bandages i go totally commando when playing banjo hits in a palace bumpin Shabazz Palaces skimming the Voynich manuscript beware the master's book of hours and keep a lookout for the hook blossom flower follow the winding path. yo, milo what's the significance of the 5/5ths? and how do you mean you're the Corduroy Coon Prince? i thought i heard you say you don't exude hubris? yo milo! you make my favorite nigger music! in my own blood, i wrote it on pigskin: We need poems that kill i refuse to be yesterday's victim. a cordial reminder of Being big B. it's that amethyst poet if i wanted to be the illest rapper, you would know it. been a couple false starts but we never end a paradox in a pair of Doc's i pare the locks while they parrot Ops i'm not a rookie or a veteran young sage of the treetops burn sage, while i plot on they weak spots two steppin' in sage colored reeboks the beat knocks vegetarian i do not eat oxtails deploying oxford commas at will. 10. song about a raygunn (an ode to Driver) i don't even really have to rap my nigga, it's about if you can talk good. it's about if you can work a simple hustle. turning rap insight into economic muscle ride the bourgeois gristle like a surfboard Nocando's my nigga til we dirtpoor so we do the math and we always carry clipboards i'm trying to strip myself of myself and be a mirror for someone else i'm trying to strip myself of myself and be a mirror for someone else i don't even really have to rap my nigga, it's about if you can talk good. he raps like there's no sense to be made. he raps like the eldest sap of the everglades. his raps move heat like thermostats adjusting centigrades. he raps with the grace of an old man shining his grandson's shoes. he raps like a master painter who's only chosing to use the blues. he reportedly raps from a dark apartment quarterly whole heartedly clutching the recorder to catch the nuzzled portions of organs he'd been choking on. when he raps everyone everywhere is always electrified and no one would really mind if they were next to die. he only raps for a good reason and getting rich isn't one of those. he scribbles raps furiously from a little bungalow and i been there. i feel inclined to rhyme i'm so inclined (matters of process become matters of place) parse the good from the nonsense never let the form dictate what's the content. it's never art for art's sake despite whatever the corpse of a marxist thinks thinking, dwelling, building sinking, swelling, filling shrinking selling movements jinxed routine is useless glimpses of misgivings for the stupid. i guess i'm stupid following a rule is just too hard for me it's hardly me.