LOOK

By Nate Marshall

LOOK

I got all these other poets

SHOOK

lift my hood they better jet

or get wet with my new book

villainous villanelles

I write jail mail for the crooks

 

...true story

your new stories

do bore me

pour out for the homies

ambrosia flavored savory new 40s

Yep!

my grizzle I’m on it

y’all don’t really want it

‘cause I concuss ya wit just ya mama jokes

written as new sonnets

pen damager iambic pentameter

spin freakish flows as prose

I been slamming nerds

 

I’m a word wizard

I merk this sure

there’s been a rumor around the slam like

“He works berserk”

“Yo, I heard that

Nate been writing

80 poems a day,

since age one eight

he made 8 great

anthologies and locked ‘em all away”

 

...Damn straight

I’m Sirius like satellite radio frequencies

I’m speaking scenes

Superhead of any open mic

you see, I freak MCs

I’m a geek you see,

Allen Ginsberg when I spin words

a beat poet

...no really, I beat poets

 

See, so come against me

it’s essential that you’ll lose

because I’ll leave your dreams

my ego is Langston HUGE

I bang bruise the pad with pens

and leave ‘em black and blue

stay strapped with stanzas shots

and cat I’ll pull the gat on you

I had to do it

you knew what I was concealing

cause I’m a big bad gangsta cool kid who writes about his feelings

a mama’s boy

a bastard child

a geek who has a rapper’s style

a sensitive thug

a kid who’s all grown up now doesn’t have to smile

 

look

these other poets got me shook

their stories move me

and I don’t deserve my name up in that book

I’ve been here long enough to know

where slam is strong enough to go

just understand there’s more than that

and focus long enough to blow

cause I remember being 13

feeling not so satisfied

in the next 5 years I got jumped seen friends

and both my grandmas die

but a mic, a stage, a pen, a page

helped end my rage and mend my days

so I’ll admit I been afraid of leaving this

‘cause when I stayed

I found my voice but now my time is up

I gotta get away

so excuse the couplet cockiness

I ever showed when rockin’ this

just trying to show my everything

for everything I got from this

Kevin Coval told me I could write

my slam coach told me not to hype

I’ve loved and lost on finals stages

the fates told me it’s not the night

 

but still I thank this forum for help making me so strong

for letting me talk about

sex, drugs, basketball, and moms

fond farewell to this chapter and to all the joy and laughter

this for every kid, whose voice has been

louder than a bomb