MALIK CRUMPLER: WRAP US IN RAPS (2 POEMS)

"Our attention is 

Expensive 

Our blood is cheap


   Our poverty keeps 

the engine oiled"

Our story is 

irrelevant 

no ink for us
 

Our story is 

always the same 

no change for us
 

Our story is 

lit only after blood 

no fame for us 

until then 

Our loss is 

our only gain 

only then attention 

Our attention is 

Expensive 

Our blood is cheap


   Our poverty keeps 

the engine oiled 

Our power is our 

reason for being 

slaughtered

   Wrap us in plastic then 

Let us lay on styrophone

    Wrap us in raps 

Let us disappear 

through microphones

   Wrap us in melinated uniforms 

arm us with laughs

   Wrap us in slogans 

brand us with ads 

Wrap us in tobacco leaves 

arm us with questions never asked 

Wrap us in patent leather 

arm us with peach cobbler 

Wrap us in raps 

Let us bless microphones 

And when it all falls nanoscopic 

Wrap us in chromosones 

Or just wrap us in ideas and topics

* 

Her father disappeared when the trains whistle blew, 

Her mothered heard and strapped her to the wall with Guerilla glue 

Her brother disappeared when the plane roared overhead 

Her mother heard and hid her in the shed 

Her sister vanished when the kettle hollered 

Her mother heard and drowned her in the bottle 

Momma finally disappeared when she looked round and saw, 

The ground bubbling 

and up from it coming a rose Sphinx's paw

 Scott Benedict

Malik Ameer Crumpler is a poet, rapper and music producer that’s released a multitude of albums, short films and five books of poetry. He founded Satori Ideas Media and co-founded the literary journals: Madmens Calling,  Visceral Brooklyn and Those That This. He is the new curator of Poets Live, has an MFA in Creative Writing from LIU Brooklyn and performs regularly in Paris and New York. Crumpler also wrote several musicals, ballets and arias commissioned by Harvest Works, Liberation Dance Theater, Firehouse Space, Panoply Lab, B’AM Paris, B’AM Vancouver, and

Double Wei Factory.