Pittsburgh Black and Whites 2

A walk through the old neighborhood takes a body
up close to the webs of distance and time intervening and
seven A.M. condensation where bulbs of ice hang
in winter humidity beneath overcast and shedding skies
where last calls once lead to warm walls by fire's side and
friends, wine bulbs and smoke in hands, and a boot kicks
at the scrub that struggles out of season through drifts
at the curb and a square instance of memory comes loose
a moment before eyes older see the panel snapped in full.
The thought crosses opposite the street walked aware
hardly able to seat in an album whose pages came loose
faster than leaves to Sshenley Park trees years ago.

The Value and Appeal of the Rap Lyric Beyond the Considered Trappings

There is an appeal to hip-hop and rap music made explicit by its growth in both the mainstream market and media exposure.  Some of its growth can be attributed to its history of connecting with cultural hot points, moments of polarizing conflict, and dual magnification and reprisal of the traditional American dream or American ideals.  Some of its growth can also be attributed to its occasional pressures on the envelope of accepted musicality and what can and cannot be called music and the several points and fields of interest that engage and reward listeners.  Some of its growth can even be attributed to its roots in inflammatory or aggressively positioned call and response and attribution of voice to the marginal personality, place, and lesser known story.  Part of its appeal, an underexposed segment that should be duly credited as a contributing factor to its growth, lies in the transformation of voice to tonal percussion instrument.  As can be heard with several minutes of listening to other genres of music that feature a prominent human voice, the voice attempts to mirror or exceed in purity, often successfully, the clear tones and scales generated by the instruments playing behind the vocals or to so grossly offset that purity that the contrast becomes so stark as to border on profundity.  In hip-hop and rap a similar thing happens that challenges the ear and greatly increases its value and appeal (its growth) except that the coloration and depth is not in the struggle of bass and treble clefs with voice, but in the struggle of voice with devices, real and synthesized, of percussion.

Lyrics to a Song Sung by a Woman in a Dream I Had

Confused is just a know that you would never mention.
You can take back the Alamo although it's already dead.
Known is just confused that's gotten stuck in your head.

The woman was singing this song
in the trailer of a movie
while I stood in a video rental store
swallowing cigarette butts from a wet ashtray
thinking about a baseball game I went to
in another dream
until I started to vomit and woke up
from the knot of canned cornbeef hash
lodged in my throat
making its way to the back of my tongue
like a disgruntled movie goer
who sat through the ending credits and
vowed never to pay good money
for a feel good movie
ever again.
I absolutely agreed.

Perfect

With that hair that stood in defiance of snowflakes fat enough
to break windows and that scarf that matched the gradients
in bare cheeks like strokes of a master knitting bitch
with an eye for the intricacies of oil and brush work
with that sighed split of lips smiling and the touch
there again and gone like a wink of tongue to eye tooth and
oh my god
did you see how perfect
the ball of snow was before it slapped you square in those chops.