Tag Archives: poetry

They are there again, just like they were yesterday.

 

See, my day has been just good

I manage to make a living and don’t complain

But these guys just want to make me cry

I have never done anything to hurt them

I patiently wait for a snake-child to cross

If ever our paths crossed

And I definitely never hurt fleas

But they do not let me be

They know what time I pass by every evening

On my way back from work

They see me lost in thought in some part of my mind

And with the other part looking all around me critically appraising my environment

Looking for new stimulation and absorbing the world around me

They see me all the while nodding my headphone-padded head to some beat

So they settle at that same spot, right on scene

Working up the steam on their acts and arts

Up to that moment when I walk by

They start with regular beats and moves

They know I never miss the wicked musical gears and sound system

They know I notice their eternally killing matching sleek black outfits

They know I am not be able to stop them

They then work their ways up

Throwing in increasingly complicated moves

Moves they don’t care that it will take aeons for me to learn

The choreographer stands near the mouth of the formation

Not part of the dance because he apparently has a higher purpose

Watching out closely for my every micro-expression

At how maddeningly his well-planned moves are being executed by the dancers

The rappers take the centre of the platform

With lines that could make a gentleman go bonkers

Reeling out rhymes that could make a poet dream

Of the age when poetry must have been born from rap

An age that he was not aware of

They build up steam steadily

And when they know I draw closer they increase the volume of the mixer

Or how else would it sound louder in my ears

They know it’s evening and the breeze will serve them well

Then they show moves that make them seem to be flying

They sway and slither and bounce and lock and pop and stomp

All with every movement of the easy breeze

They make me read meaning into every breath and hiss of the air

They obey the wind

The rappers’ lines carrying on the wind in a way that defied physics

I got distinction in physics

But for the beauty I saw all those years in school,

They seem like dirt compared to what these guys do with the wind

Moments I wish I were deaf

So I’d not hear the steady booms against my ear drums

Making me head shake subconsciously like one having a focal seizure

Never mind, the bass would still make my heart and viscera resonate

Or better still, I be blind

Then I would not see these wicked wizards and shape-shifters

Floating in the wind at times and other times sharply moving like electricity

Never mind, the thuds of their feet as they stomp would get to me somehow

 

Then they watch for the climax

That moment

When a straight-faced calculating and sober-minded adult doctor suddenly bursts into tears

Because he cannot understand why they would taunt him

With such displays of artistic perfection

Don’t tease and call me “only human after all”

What am I to do

If you cut me I bleed

I am human

If you rap and move like that

I cry with longing and envy

Wishing I could be you,

Right there

In that moment

Wielding the greatest weapon you have over me now

Your mad love for the lines and moves

With that confidence and ease accompanying your ability to do them

That you know I can read very clearly all over you

In that moment

Right there

When a scientist who lives on and deals with facts and Pure and Undefiled Science

Is brought figuratively to his knees

Before a phenomenon he has no control over

As he literally quickens his heels

His eyes already leaking tears

 

It just is unfair!