What is a world?
Who is fearless, peerless
slow but steady
watching Aesop Rock?
My heart is heavy.
Feeling like Mannheim,
steam rolled and still can’t see me.

Lonely, down as feathers.
at least I know who I am.
Some people shudder when I put pen
To the pad, who’s he going
to talk about in his raps?

Don’t humiliate me,
or say shit to me.
Got more PTSD then
you could ever see.
Third degree black belt mind.
Eventually, we need to
let each person be a person.
Maybe see the slippers, Cinderella.
We are only one, like DMX and Griselda.
Or like cats playing Zelda with dogs playing Jeopardy.
You can’t see shit to me, sense one.
Who knows my identity?
I recite over you
sleeping and the dreams
cease to be.
Like a dead Parrot, Cleese on the beats
Poetry’s supposed to be free,
that’s why we have
Oddball Magazine.
Your radiation can’t stop me.
I’m like a circus on a sea,
in a circus sea
Your medication tries to suffocate me
while everyone else judges.
Make one more comment.
We shall see.
Respect the words, respect nouns and verbs.
You call it hip hop,
I call it poetry,
freedom to be me where I go.
Bunny hops on adjectives
while they’re on sedatives
Where hope lives, I see a system.
I see things like if there was a spoon
and there was a moon,
then Neo jumped like a cow over Buzz Aldrin.
Hope the space oddity don’t leave too soon.
Tiny dancer on Elton’s bus,
a small advance in the nucleus.
Poetry is freedom. Take a look at those
who don’t give up.
Now take a look at us.
“Our work is never done, we are Sisyphus”
Astronautalis

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. His third book, Train of Thought 2: Almost Home is available now at the Oddball Book Store.