(C)rap Battle #6

All’s use do iz

Spit nursery rhymes

Go out wit friends and nurse coronas wit limes

Talkin bout the good ol’ crimes

You committed with hats that were fitted

Bats + trumpet taps for the afflicted, pope’s-a-joke + hope-for-dope addicted

Made sure you didn’t choke and the teacher’s apple was pitted

Look widget kid with a tidbit what’s widdit?

I told you: always wear ya hand-knitted mittens

When it’s cold n you quit the band n you playin quidditch

Hermione’s a dime

(Not by the dozen cuzin I wasn’t fuzzin or buzzin)

Taking all the classes grasping hourglasses going back in time

She in it

Now it’s time to quit it

When you holdin the snitch but you snitchin

Ditch ya LIT class with the bathroom pass

They wonderin if you shittin or splittin







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J’avoue #1

English Translation Below

Beaucoup de gens

M’ont demandé

Pourquoi

Ai-je

Décidé

D’aller

En France.

J’ai

Donné

Des raisons différentes à

Chaque personne.

Parce que

Si je donnais

La vraie

Raison

Que j’ai quitté les États-Unis

Parce que Julien Sorrel a refusé l’offre

De Fouqué qui apportait richesse mais

Petite gloire

Et puis il découvrit une petite grotte au milieu de la pente presque

Verticale d’un des roches dans les montagnes

Au-dessus de Verrières et

Il vit s’éteindre, l’un après l’autre

Tous les rayons du crépuscule…

Et son âme s’égarait dans la contemplation

De ce qu’il s’imaginait rencontrer

Un jour à Paris…

Personne ne me croirait.


I Confess #1

Many people

Have asked me

Why

I

Decided

To go

To France.

I

Have given

Different reasons to

Each person.

Because

If I gave

The real

Reason

That I left the United States

Because I read a French novel

And discovered a passage

In it that moved me so deeply

That I looked out the window

At the streets of Bed-Stuy

And told myself that one day,

Whether in 5 or 25 years,

I would move to Paris

And learn the language

And submerge myself in the culture

To understand the foundations and elements

That created the words

Which shook my soul…

Nobody would believe me.


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Paris #7

English Translation Below

Thanks to Bertrand Hauger-enard / Riddley Walker

 

Hier, au petit-déjeuner

J’ai bu un expresso, mangé un pain au chocolat puis

 J’ai pris un train SNCF, un bien joli train.

 

Malgré l’achat d’un billet,

Je me suis assis sur le sol,

Car il ne restait plus de places.

 

Après la quiche pour le déjenuer

J’ai manqué mon train

Mais j’ai pris le suivant sans billet

Et je n’ai pas été dérangé et j’ai pris un siege.

 

J’ai parlé avec un Haïtien étudiant

En économie à la Sorbonne.

Nous avons convenu que Paris est trés jolie.

 

Dans le metro, pendant que je mange une baquette

Et que je bois mon quatrième expresso

Un sans-abri au visage en décomposition me saisit par l’épaule

Et dit: DONNE MOI ÇA, JE SUIS COMME TOI !

 

Plus tard, j’ai lu de la poésie pour la première fois à La Recyclerie

Situé à côté d’un KFC. C’était sympa. J’ai commondé un whisky coca,

Mail il n’y avait pas de coca, je l’ai donc bu avec du soda au gingembre.

Beaucoup de gens fumaient à l’extérieur et il y avait des cabines privées.

 

Dans le RER du retour, j’ai vu un homme ivre crier après une femme :

TU EST JOLI ! La femme a ri : Tu est gentil

Puis l’homme m’a donné un coup de coude au visage en disant :

Désolé, aide-moi, ourvre la fenêtre.

J’ai ouvert la fenêtre pour qu’il puisse fumer.

 

En rentrant à la maison, j’ai écouté Orelsan au casque puis j’ai dormi 12 heures.

 

Au matin, on a frappa à ma porte. Un homme en uniforme m’a tendu une carte et a dit :

Nous vous surveillons, vous et votre de vie, depuis un peu moins de 5 mois.

Voici votre carte de citoyenneté.

Bienvenue en France.

 


 

Yesterday, during breakfast

I drank an expresso and eat a pain au chocolat

Then I took the SNCF train, a nice train.

 

Despite buying a ticket

I sat on the floor

Because there were no more seats left.

 

After quiche for lunch

I missed my train

But I took the next one without a ticket

And I wasn’t bothered. I had a seat.

 

During the ride I talked with a Haitian student

Who was studying economics at The Sorbonne.

We agreed that Paris is a very pretty city.

 

At the metro, while I eat a baguette and drank my 4th expresso,

A homeless man with a decaying face grabbed my shoulder and yelled:

GIVE ME THAT! I AM JUST LIKE YOU!

 

Later, I read my poetry for the first time at La Recyclerie,

Which is next to a K.F.C.

It was nice.

I ordered a whiskey and coke, but they didn’t have coke,

So I had a whiskey and ginger ale instead.

There were lots of people smoking outside and there were private booths.

 

On the RER train back home I saw a drunk man yell at a woman,

“YOU ARE PRETTY.” She laughed and replied, “You are kind.”

Then the man elbowed me in the face and said,

“Sorry, help me, open the window.”

I opened the window so he could smoke.

 

Walking home, I listened to Orelsan on my headphones then slept 12 hours.

 

In the morning there was a knock on my door.

A man in a uniform handed me a card.

“We have been watching you and your lifestyle for just under 5 months.

Here is your citizen card.

Welcome to France.”

 


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Insomnia #22

 

Mind is burning

Another petty crime discussed by the jury

Whining and already wasting in a hurry

And time is racing and turning

Over brain-storming hardly learning

Insane stories this wooden floor is worn

Out are more poems just boring torn

Over these past glories subconscious oratories

To the surface not sure the purpose yet perhaps the worst is

Yet to boast toast roast and coast

For these caught thoughts ought naught

To be

Forgotten I guess unless

A lot is in

A night I might bite

My lip a bit that’s it oh shit just

Slightly with tightly

Closed eyes yet who knows

Out the window the wind blows, I see three tall trees in throes

Now I’m taking stock of the alarm clock

Spinning over my bed my body’s like lead it’s dead

Unlocking the phone so

Postpone the

Morning’s near

 


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Paris #6

(For English, scroll down)

 

J’ai le feu

Mais j’ai toujours peur

D’être paresseux

D’ailleurs

Les rêves et les espoirs

Ils s’estompent et se désintègrent

Comme tu veux

Putain, ce n’est pas un jeu

Mais ce qui est enjeu ?

 

Voir les même choses encore et encore

Entendre les même choses encore et encore

Penser les même choses encore et encore

Toujours

Trop d’efforts

Dans un monde

Qui est mort

 

Qu’est-ce que je cherche ?

Réveille-toi

Tais-toi

Merde

 

Toujours se sentir comme un connard

Des mots et encore des mots

Trop d’temps à lire d’vieux livres comme si je me trimballais une vielle charrette bancale

Et je sais que c’est de ma faute

 

Je n’ai

Jamais

Compris

Mon esprit

 

Une autre tentative stupide

 


 

There’s this fire in me

Yet I’ve always been terrified

Of being lazy

Grappling

With dreams and hopes

That are fading and disintegrating

As you like it…

Fuck, this isn’t a game

Yet what’s at stake?

 

To see the same things

Again and again

To hear the same things

Again and again

To think the same things

Again and again

I’ve always tried too hard, too much

In a dead world that’s becoming dust

 

What are you searching for?

Wake up

Shut up

Shit

 

I always feel like bastard

These words, more and more words

I think I’ve wasted too much time

Reading old books

Like I’ve been pulling an old, useless, broken cart

I know it’s my fault

 

I’ve never understood

Who I am

Here’s just another

Stupid attempt

 


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NYC #14

I’m smoking a cigarette with the warm-hearted bus boy.

He’s got a Cali-surfer mixed with Greased Lightnin’ vibe

Without the 1970s pep rally pep nor the beach bum laziness…

We’re working in Union Square, 12 hour shifts shuffling between tables

Of oblivious rich New Yorkers and duped tourists drinking

$18 watered-down martinis eating $12 re-heated microwave-crostinis

We smell like the dumpsters on the other side of the playground fence

Where there are children chasing each other lost in their innocence

While the sweat steadily dripping down our aching backs that’re torn from carrying

Bins/trays and he generously passes me the lucky strike pack for another

And we joke about something I can’t remember

My memory’s no good about this depressing blur of time-my-in-life-but-I do

Remember feeling quietly lucky that I was moving steadily, all-bite slowly, towards

Great literature the world had never seen and that him and I were already

Far from these menial jobs, petty bosses, little restaurant conniving dramas

Where many sad souls reconcile themselves to mundane lifetimes and dark mantras

And late-night subway rides on the G with no relief and no sleep

But later, after closing

Surf-Lightnin’ invited me

To Central Park with a Thespian Texan who conveniently had a guitar

And we drank cheap beer from brown paper bags

And shared our own emo chord progressions

Like the silly heartbroken boys we (are) used to be + had ambitious conversations

Cause Cali was going back to Cali soon to be/become a great actor

His fire and certainty were contagious

These small flickering moments for me were bright and kept my

Head tilted towards the expanse of a starless sky

And nothing would stop us we knew we were right

And now I see he’s starring in a Netflix special with Sabrina and witches

While I see over her shoulder a busboy fixing a torn napkin on a table

Sweating by the Seine while I’m being handed a cigarette from a sultry Parisian

Still a long way to go, but Cali and I knew and still know

We wouldn’t stop back then

Remember when

 


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Paris #5

(For the English Translation, See below. Special thanks to Bertrand Hauger-Enard for the editorial suggestions.)

 

La beau, le célébré, l’aimé

Le riche, le confortable, le puissant,

L’artiste, Le talentueux,

Le génie qui se pend

Au milieu de la nuit

 

L’obscur, le solitaire, le moche,

Le pauvre, la malade,

Une âme qui trouve un moyen de se réveiller

Le matin, riant et allant au travail

 

Chacun a des attentes différentes de ce que leur vie devrait être.

Et chacun a ses propres façons/moments/parties de sa personnalité et de

Son experience qui les aident à avancer.

 

C’est peut-être

Miex

D’être bon dans la vie

Que

D’avoir une bonne vie

 

 


 

 

The beautiful, celebrated, loved

Rich, comfortable, powerful,

Artistic, Talented

Genius who hangs themself

In the middle of the night.

 

The obscure, lonely

Ugly, poor, sick

Soul who somehow finds a way to wake up

In the morning, laugh, and go to work.

 

Everyone has different expectations of what their life should be.

And everyone has different ways/moments/parts of their

Personality and experience which help them get through.

 

Perhaps

It is better

To be good at life

Than

To have a good life

 


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Buddhism Caveat #21

“If not

Now…

When?”

-Zen Kōan

 

In a week when I receive

My shitty paycheck from my shitty job

Which I took out of desperation

Because I have five children to feed

Because my religion doesn’t believe

In contraception and I thought my

Neighbor was pretty

When I was young and reckless so we

Had sex many times because that is what humans like to

Do and love and now the babies are crying

Because they’re hungry and my boss is going to fire me

Because I don’t sleep

And I’m not productive enough at the office

And my life is hell.

 


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