The footsteps echoed on cobblestones
When a chime rang ten of the clock,
As a sailor making his way back home
Was walking up from the dock,
It was cold and dark for the lights were out
And the street was wet with the rain,
When he came to an old red telephone box
At the side of a narrow lane.

The clouds were black and they opened up
So he stepped in out of the wet,
Dropped his swag as it turned to hail
And lit up a cigarette,
The box was ancient, was George the Fifth
And hadn’t been used for years,
But stood in a lane that time forgot
When the rot set in, and worse.

For most of the houses were boarded up
And the weeds had grown outside,
Some had embarked for a tree-lined park
And some of the others died,
It was lonely there in the dark of night
As the sailor waited, he sang,
But stubbed his cigarette out in fright
When the telephone next to him rang.

He stared at it for a while before
He raised it, stopping the bell,
It had an echoing, ghostly sound
Like you hear in a deep sea shell,
The sound of sobbing came to his ear
And he cried, ‘Who’s there, what’s wrong?’
‘Oh God, I’ve waited forever my dear,
I’m locked in the basement, Tom!’

The sailor said that he wasn’t Tom
But she didn’t appear to hear,
‘He’s got an axe, attacking the door,
Be quick or he’ll **** me, dear!’
The sailor didn’t know what to say
But a chill ran up his spine,
‘Tell me, what’s your address,’ he said
‘Before you run out of time!’

‘I’m straight across from the telephone box,
You usually meet me here,
He’s found us out, and he screams and shouts
That he’ll **** you as well, my dear!
He just came home from a spell at sea
And called me a cheating *****,
If you don’t come over and rescue me
He’ll have smashed his way through the door.’

The sailor wanted to say, ‘Enough!
It’s nothing to do with me,’
But flew on out of the telephone box,
Leapt over a fallen tree,
He raced right in through the open door
And he called, ‘I’m here, just wait!’
Then made his way to the cellar door
But all he could feel was hate.

The door was shattered, he walked right in
It was dark, there wasn’t a light,
He felt around for a candle, lit
And stared at the terrible sight.
A man lay dead on the basement floor
Where an axe had taken his life,
And there with her throat like an open sore
Was the body of his dear wife.

He staggered, stopped, and fell to his knees
And sobbed like a man insane,
‘Oh God, it’s true, I did this to you,
But my mind’s been playing games.
I thought if I went away to sea
I’d return to find they were dreams…’
As he sliced a razor across his throat
He thought, ‘Life’s not what it seems!’

David Lewis Paget

I am this
And you love it
The way I talk
Like a song
The way I move
Like a dance
My every detail
I bounce cannonballs off the moon
With the flick of my wrist
I buy whatever I see

I make up the slang
It becomes the lexicon
I invent feelings
You didn't even know you had
I make you feel it
I make you love it
I'm a god of swag
I make you want it

I'm whatever I want
And you love it
My voice is a tone
That makes the ladies come
My moves are smooth
And make them come again
You love it
That I'm a **** *******
You always come to me
And I please you like no other

This is the mountain I'm climbing
Due to circumstantial timing
The triumphant peaks change over time
Just one of this mountain's many crimes

The rocks on this mountain are flawed
But the mountain is flawless
Nature enforces restrictive laws
So my life becomes lawless
Through this insanity
I can't find my humanity
It's gagged and bound
In the lost and found
On this lonely hill
Where I get my fill

It's an uphill battle
Getting above this mountain
My conscience rattles
My eyes pour like a fountain
When I see everything suddenly
Like halos hovering
Over my past
Lying dead in the grass

Sometimes I must traverse a log to go over a bog
Then I must do the inverse to go under the smog
There are countless endeavors
Through varying weather
That leave me very confused
And frantically panicked
This mountain provides a view
Of the entire planet

This mountain made of dust
I scale because I must
Stillness develops rust
When cliffs await us
I see dead pioneers on the ground
I see weary travelers all around
I see fellow climbers as brothers
Unless I see them as a lover
Then I want to go cave exploring
Before my grave ends the story

Things should get weird
If banality is to be feared
In order to make a mark
Even if it's in the dark
To be perfectly candid
This mountain is my canvas
I carve my face in it as I go up
But my face changes as I grow up
So I start swag jacking
The backpacking
Mirror macking
Confidence lacking
Mountain attacking
Climbers
So I can find a crevasse to fit into
This mountain is easy to give in to

Prepubescent voices

crawl back and forth

A squeaking, scratching chorus of topics

unbeknownst to the speaker

Meaningless sounds produced just to be heard

Drowned out by the unfortunately undeafening silence

of headphones plugged into nothing

Misdirected words, hidden insults, skewed meanings

Subtle bullying pretends to be older and wiser

when it is terrified of new things

Gay, ****, emo, ****, laughter

Because the body is hilarious

Crowded faces: authority is buried under the splotchy noise

Enter swear here _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

Because “******” is an address

And “You have no friends” is just kidding

“Go **** yourself” is love

Outward rudeness to the man who puts himself though it daily

An example for the even less learned

7-year-old cursing

Because “*******” means nothing to them

or anyone else.

Sit down because there are seats

Look in my eyes, taken back immediately

stupidity realized in a golden split second of mortification

Split second passes now with more phantom confidence

One by one skip, saunter, slither down three steps

Yellow noise recedes not fast enough

Obnoxious created by too much television

And its weird to be gay, and gay to be weird

Unacceptable open windows to normality

Jack my swag

Kindly,

Will you please shut the f* * * up.

stop fronten
yes you the boys i once fancied
we all know you missed out
let a good thing slip by
all in the name of swag
swag + hood status + reputation + ego
you sleep alone
liven with mom's
no queen to defend the king
check-mate
we all grow old and alone
not all with regret
dyeing young is a myth
a blessing for few
stop fronten

rosa are red banana are yellow peter got us legs spread while in my mums bed

The poem that I'd never write..
The kind of poem that'd show me in a different light.
I scoff at Benja F bills
Women come and go,
I be popping pills that make the world turn slow.
I yolo *******,
Holler at team swag,
Money and the *******,
Tell her throw it in the bag..

That's the kind of poem that I'd never write.
The kind of poem where I ****** everyone in sight.
I keep it real hood.
Gangster all day.
Look me the wrong way,
Dead body in the hallway.
You don't want no problems,
I'm strapped like Velcro,
Dummy I don't play no games, Nintendo.

This made little sense,
something wasn't right.
This is the kind of poem I would never ever write.

Truancy is a ***** with ***** stamps and skunky hair
her constant need to blow smoke up the ***** of those trying to try
is inconvenient at best, irresponsible at worst,
maybe amusing in the eyes of the elders.
Been there, done that
she rolls her eyes and pouts
slits her wrists with carnival glass
so she bleeds the multi-dimensional colors imperceivable to  human eyes,
an entirely different color spectrum,
ultraviolet, super violent,
tasty and warm.
This young lady is no lady at all
just a little girl,
vulnerable and scared
and a total ****** *****,
grabbing her ankles and thumping in dumpsters,
pretty little thing,
with scabs and gin
and cute little *** stains.
Leave her be,
this street walking angel
she never learned her lesson,
too swag for education.

Swiggity swoogity
im coming for
that
boogity

I took a stroll down my childhood lane
These neural pathways took me back
Multilingual versions of the narrative
Warned me of imminent attack
I made it work for me my people
Bedeviled on behalf of all my greater good
I took my time in stride with sidewalks cracked
And broke my swag along a scattered beach
Came down with that viral capacity to fluctuate
According to what gut feeling feeds heart pumping
Where we intersect that jazz bebopper inhabiting art
Draw outside the lines come together in stark contrast
To the words we negotiate with each other in exchange
For favors better left unpaid yet enacted cross-purpose
To our intended lizard goal to wrap our prey entangled
Tongued in the mail entreated globally galactic guardian

I’d simply settle inside ambitious repose armed by you
Draped across our gossamer webs wet commingled faces

IM SICK AND TIRED of you thinking that the only thing I do on a daily basis is get up drag my feet to go and eat my cocoa puffs, sit back, max and relax, watch cartoons and reminisce about 8 tracks.
NAH **** THAT!
Because it doesnt matter to you that I’ve proven how intelligent I am,
because
you still think my skin is a sham and I’m supposed to be in the back of a classroom hardly able to read and write my name because thats how the
“good” ones have been tamed.
But the lights are dim back there because the brighter students get the brighter lights in the front row chairs.
My hand is raised the entire hour and 15 minutes but you never even attempt to stutter my name.
Because what I say is not your reality.
As far as you are concerned it is incorrect. I have tourettes with absolutely no regrets as to what I say,
but I’ll make **** sure that you know the truth.
I get my paper back and it says “plagiarized”...
now what the **** makes you think that?
Because I can use words that have more than 3 syllables and form a sentence in your vernacular this is syntactically more capable than anything that your low IQ has ever been able to form easily?
I apologize.
For not being politically ignorant
ebonically incorrect
and generally not being dumb enough for you to laugh and point to call me ******.

Please, Slim Shady...sit the **** down...this is grown up talk now.
Realize. The colonizer knows not of his privilege because he blindly walks with it.
While we, I mean me, walk very knowingly with shackles and chains with your name, that speak she has not yet been tamed with every jingle, and threatening step that I take toward the invasion of your future.

I’ve taken all your required high school courses
******* Pretentiousness English 3 and 4.
And my score means absolutely nothing, despite the fact that it is higher than your front row chairs that stare and nod robotically, because they are afraid to question your ability.
Understand...your PhD means jackshit to me.

Don’t hurt yourself in trying to comprehend.
You’d probably go insane but lets not try to think about that.
Lets get back to your wack *** philosophy that I because I don’t speak in the proper vernacular I don’t know nothin’.
Like the fact that what I just said is a double negative. But see its funny, because when I use ebonics and incorporate double negatives to illustrate a point, I’m ignorant.
And yet Mark Twain is a literary genius for doing the exact same thing.

Would it change if I said that Mark Twain was black?
But I wouldn’t do that.

It would set me up for an attack and you’d try to have these literary comebacks and I’d have to smack....
some knowledge on you.
That your Twain, got his twang from being in the main presence of we. And yes I mean we. As in people like me, and Talib Kweli. Or to date back in history Phillis Wheatley, who messed with you psychologically, but you thought she was too stupid and you are too naive to see that she was an O.G.
The true original gangster.

There are too many -e’s
but they are necessary to eeeeeeevoke,
no elicit the response your failing to recognize that your ties to 21st century humanity are short
ragg’ed
and slowly splintering away.

You missed those entire 3 pages in your history textbooks when it said that
BLACK doesn’t make any less of a person.
BLACK is a crayon color.
And BLACK doesn’t even exist in skin color...we are brown.
That was another thing your genius colorblind mind refused to recognize.

I am stamping “plagiarized” on every Mark Twain book ever written because our swag was stolen!
In 1492 Columbus sailed to ocean blue
to give us diseases and call us illiterate savages.
Thats not very nice...better table manners would be appreciated. (And we’re the savages)

YOU CAN TAKE THIS PAPER AND...
use it as a book mark. Those history books are screaming your name, its time to answer your call.
Come back to me when you realize that I am intelligent and hold the key to all that is not  a rainbow
or unicorn and fairy princesses.
We all live in reality that your bright lights and shiny piece of paper is blocking you from seeing.
Come to the back where the lights are dim,
and your dissed on a whim,
but it helps you realize that just maybe...
your life is plagiarized.

People making jokes about my birthday.
Banging teeth when kissing.
Eggplant.
Walking to school in the cold without a sweatshirt.
Being too cold and losing feeling in any body parts.
Kissing someone with ****** hair. It hurts.
Saggy knees.
Stretch lines.
Homophobia in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.
Boys whose hallway swag gets in the way of my getting to class on time.
Having to wait until he and I can be together.
Period cramps.

Let's dance to the boogie in the room.
Hearts pound, energy abound, the hips sway.
Cyclical time baby caught in the flume.
Fall into me sweetheart, your soul's astray.

Arm spread eagles escape into the sound.
Could we maybe find peace in this madness?
Further gone, blue, red, green, and white abound.
EVERYBODY! This love we must address.

One more hit, swig, swag, tab, maybe a dab
and we're off on the moon again singin.
Lay all your innocent out on the slab
cuz darlin o girl their love'll be ringin.

What music
slowly covers
the background-
of twelve cylinder
nostalgia
and new age
conformity?
Blends with
the whispers
of the breeze
and the
child's laughter?
Where are we
now that
the Greasers
run the town?
Their style,
their swag,
so appealing.
What comes
if it when,
the canine
shivers
and the
heaters are loaded?

If this poem had a life before I wrote it,
this poem was a penguin.
This poem waddled,
not just because it was a penguin,
also because this poem was fat.
This poem was a fat penguin.
And not just the black and white kind;
this poem was an electric blue fat penguin
who never really understood it was different
until its parents let it out to play with the other little penguins
and they started teasing it and calling it blue bird.
Until that moment,
this poem had no idea that it was a bird.
All this poem knew was that its heartbeat was like a simile
and it had metaphors for feet
and they did not dance.
This poem embraced its electric blue nature
and never saw itself as the underdog
because it was a penguin who lived in Antarctica
and it had no concept of what a dog was
or what it might be under.
Penguins just don’t think like that.
This poem smacked a seal with a couplet underwater.
None of the other penguins believed it,
but it did.
This poem waddled with a lazy swag
and leaned a little to the right
so sometimes it walked in circles.
This poem had 360 degrees of perspective
and -50 degree wind chills.
This poem had more than 50 words for snow
and no words for poetry.
It just lived
and didn't even listen to what other people wrote about it
because it's windy in Antarctica
and you can't really hear much.

smile…… Manipulate…..complements ...... Manipulate……act interested……manipulate…..show some tears….. manipulate…….white lies….manipulate…..it’s a drug, to manipulate….flirt and manipulate…. escape pain or consequence…manipulate …..socially acceptable to manipulate…to get what you deserve…manipulate….to get what you want….manipulate……to change some one’s mind manipulate…..to be successful manipulate …..O i hate manipulation! i rather have paid every speeding ticket, stood in every long line, gone to jail, paid more than full price for everything, not got the job and been broke…..never been kissed…failed at everything….then to have ever manipulated in my life! O God i hate manipulation and it’s subtleness.. a quiet vice…a secret soul killer…. Call it what you will….swag….cleverness….success…..it doesn’t matter manipulation wears any Word you choose…it’s all self-centered…. me me me me me….. hehehehe…..stop!!!!…. Manipulation must die! Especially in its most subtle and acceptable forms. Even if i have to struggle…even if i lose everything…it must die…”those who save there live will lose it, those lose their lives will find it…………Christ guide me

funny how it's always
been about you

the wind's through the larynx
of a world raging without us
the song's making us weep

the stage too hard to cast our swag on
fingers to shaky to turn the page

i've been kicking it with a friend
the undertone of sinister elegance
of age - the vanishing of what used to be

***** ****** with gold triggers
Gold chains and no figures
Broke as a joke what the hell am I gone do with ya ?
Idk. These new ******
Not black people them ew ******
Have priorities so messed up they put rent behind new shoes *****
Ch ch boom, that mac go
Bodies on the floor getting stacked tho
Rappers getting snacked on
Came in the game through the back door 
But now I'm at the gate guarding it
Y'all really just here to be gardening
I'll finish it cuz I started it
I'm new but I'm a huge part in this
So pardon the interruption like ESPN on late nights
I used to travel on ground but now all I do is make flights 
And please don't get me wrong cuz I swear that I lived a good life
Real good right ?
Then how I get so violent like its hood life ?
I'll never know I'll never know
Them big parties I gotta go
Yo girl ******* they gotta show
Yo girl with me she gotta blow
Don't pass the blunt cuz I never smoke
Just pass the bottle I'll drain it slow
You make it rain, I make it snow
Wait no I don't
Cuz my cash flow
Is for me myself and I and I just had to talk with me see
Cuz myself kinda crazy like the lohans' father's seeds be
So me be running up to I like the letter after g be
Cuz Me see the evil man that myself will be in three weeks
But plant a bomb and blow myself up like my career by the month of June 
You swear you on my level, I'm singing you using auto tune
I snapped up on this rap, is there anything else I need to do
This is open vent 6 and I promise you that I'm still not through
I know I'm bouta ball like I'm kobe, d wade, or uncle drew 
It's me, it's drake, it's Kendrick, all these rappers but really who are you ?
I know I'll be the best just give me time and some orange juice 
And swear to you I'll be the first trillionaire to hit the booth
I'm super cool I'm laid back
I never leave where I was raised at
That 414 that mil town
The best city never made whack 
This open vent is through with
That new kid with the swag with em
What the hell is they gone do with em
He changing music a new system 
His stupid bars and imagination
He's rapping hard, no hesitation
Next vent I'll sing amazing
Then see how much I'm really making
Cuz right I don't know
But on the real I gotta go
Next vent'll go down for ******>So stay tuned for the next show

Beauty Queen
Miss Q
Thinking of you
;-)
:-)
...
?

Post-apocalyptic characters flash white
against a twilight screen
Tiny, shiny meanings begging for responses
But I won't feed
these visions of nothingness

Since when did I become
bound to this ubiquitous pretense,
since when did I become
cast into these tiny webs roping me inextricably closer
to the "you" I just met yesterday and
since when did we become
like spineless eels
caught dumbfounded
in these fishing lines
of textonomy?

This ain't swag
and if it is,
then your swag
makes me want to regurgitate
la salsa verde y los tamales de pollo
all over your smooth and crisp
white shoes

Can't someone untie me from these social knots?
I want to go back to ink-blots,
conscriptions, Polaroid photographs,
X's and
abandoned
I's

I got them 25 dolla bills in my pocket *****
gonna make it rain make it rain on yo ******* quick
pyrex raf simmons drippin wit the real swag
smashing bottles of that grey goose
all the ****** gettin loose
gonna make it rain
make it rain
make it rain
make it rain
make it rain
make it rain
make it rain


.

Its  a real life R&J; her and me
that's Romeo and Juliet don't you see?
minus the suicide of course, but true all the same
its fate and destiny that I blame
her as a Capulet, the majestic Juliet
I, the Montague, Romeo, no regret
Theres the suitor first, Paris who had his chance
This princess of a lifetime and he only offered one dance
no wonder she left him, the arrogant ***
did he really have a chance, that boy had no class.
I stole her heart with just a look, what's that say for me?
charmed i'm sure, but I'm just that **** lucky
to take her hand in just three days, lucky lucky me
she had my heart with a gesture, me happily
obliging to her every command
after all, I'm a gentleman
I have no time for swag
after all, yolo makes me gag

once you’re by my side
high off of it
nothing can deny me of your heart
no more time to live in yesterday

"i give up on love! i've
waited my whole life
for love!! but
it's never found me;
it will never find
me!"

see, Love
has been waiting ever since;
even before you came
into existence.
you just have to
look, be aware
of the Love that
surrounds you, shields
you, covers you; Love that
keeps you warm
Yolo Swag

the jingle jangle of those things you dangle
from neck stretched thin with shiny things
call me a magpie
call me a baller
a shot caller
a hip hop drama starter
kicks so fresh they came from the produce section
this flash of blood diamond on my wrist
costs more than the home I don’t have
if I hit the switch I could make that *** drop…
got my obnoxiously huge candy painted cans on my head
so I can only hear the ads I want
and these threads reek with so much swag
the sweat, blood, and tears of little brown and yellow people
I couldn’t give a **** about
dropping three hundred on my mall haul
and they have the nerve to ask me for the rent
sounds system off the hook plasma on the wall
more **** than an abandoned lot
more thoughts forgot than cops in krispy kreme
with a water gun and ski mask for when times get hard
me and my friends are going to blow two months salary
on lap dances and ******* fantasies
“Aint that new track dope?”
“Yeah”
“You heard it?”
“Naw, but they were talking about it on world star”
this floatation device is going to be too heavy
and I am going to drown in all of this fly
fresh to death

"Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."

Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
    Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
    Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
    Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your ***?
    How do you melt the multy swag?
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;
    Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;
    Pad with a slang, or chuck a ***;
    Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;
    You can not bank a single stag;
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,
    And on the square you flash your flag?
At penny-a-lining make your whack,
    Or with the mummers mug and gag?
    For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,
    Your merry goblins soon stravag:
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL
    It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not.
    Until the squeezer nips your scrag,
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

He enters the room, smirk on that hideously gorgeous face. The *******.
Walks by the young girls like he owns the swag of a thousand Biebers.
He is mistaken. Or are we?
"Push the air through your diaphram" he says with a sly grin, looking across the room at her.
She looks back. Defiance on her lips? No. Intrigue.
Their eye contact puts a weight on bystanders; The building pressure of a crescendo waiting to be released.
She breaks it. He frowns.
He is impressionable but very rightly so.
She sighs.
Victory sings an out of tune pitch.
He walks over, dragging Zachary's broken French horn behind.
Looks like this student will have to wait; His teacher is on a mission.
"Mission accomplished" he thinks as she sits on his living room couch, wine of glass in hand.
He resides in his bedroom, awaiting the inevitable.
He walks out to find an empty wine glass and an empty room.

In your mind, you believe you are like artists you listen to.
Like their deep, meaningful lyrics relate to you.
In your mind, you think yourself to be clever.
Your little sayings and sarcasms so devious.
In your mind, you believe that you are a hipster.
Ironically saying yolo and swag.
In your mind, you think that you have inside jokes.
I tend to think that they are just with yourself.
Maybe that's just it.
It's all in your mind.