Shameless Hack on Patricia Smith: Part Two McHack's Revenge!

Why Chicago Is

Warm whiskey pours forth from the deep speaker cone,
Three brothers peel the soul and rhythm from their women
Songs from Waters, Wells, Willie, Williamson. They look side to side
Feeling the full force of the real Blues they can put into you
By living in that electric lake of paying dues and playing for us.
They work for their tall shoulders and sweat gin.

This is why Chicago is—
To tell of gravel gut and heart with style,
The reason not to confuse it’s the real Home of the Blues,
The remaining refuge Robert would say still looked Blue
Blue and blue alone, not soaked in neon pink and steel guitars,
Or jaded in mold of stagnant river mouth runoff.
Its people who still need to work and build wrought iron bridges—
Sing at the base of skyscrapers,
Thin Jim Beam on the train,
Or nab them a Coog who still looks good.

The bars will never close, the wind neither and beats thumps,
The guitar goes from waggin’ its dick in your face
To gently holding controlled sobs.
We breathe the free air till dawn,
And clink our wrenches against the rust,
Atlasing O’Hare or Hancock on our big shoulders.
each river gently flowing will hit the commercial tree and rolls rapids.
And we say hard vowels: at least a real lot, yeah, constantly.

Streetball: A Sonnet

Pass me the rock while I steampunk these fools!
Homie like MJ gon’ light you up like Kools.
Don’t bring that trash in my house you clownin’ hacks.
Home boy gon’ lay mad hoops as you lay tracks.
Now bring what you got, I got you on D,
I might be white, but I got game in me.
You bring the noise, I’ll bring the rain and funk.
I move and shake and rawdog when I’m drunk.
I eat fools like you each occaision I
shoot my hoops by the cage at ninth and vine.
I drop it like its hot like no other,
and you know its hot up in here brother.
And I love to trick these fools while they hatin’
Go back to yo’ stank ass momma boy, she waitin’.

Shameless hack on Patricia Smith

Cadillac

The impact was magnetic, metallic attraction.
Cold connection made from infrastructure and status symbols
On rails, railed roads spike with lights aligned together.
Or perhaps poles like deer, can be dumb motherfuckers.

The square glasses made another light their nose.
The steel crumpled,

Jagged,
Twisted,
Stabbing.

The pelvic bone bore the battering ram.
The knee crushes the dash,
The face hits the glass,
The ball breaks the socket [the airbag] it explodes
And the mind wanders.

The characters never change.
Jim Beam, The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit
And Doctor Jimenez, that cocky asshole.

The phone is answered before it rings and he already knows.
The curtain draws, the band plays and the crowd cheers.
As Zeus and Cronos, time stops.
He’s killed his father.

The Autobiography

I am as most people know me, aloof.
I don’t care about many things and won’t
Suffer details about things I do
Or the things I don’t.
I’ve never spoken seriously.
I don’t believe a thing I say, I mean less
If I was someone else I wouldn’t like me,
But I am me and I love me best.

I’ve feigned depth and walked with wolves,
I’ve seen the impossible come and pass.
I could’ve been remarkable
If I wasn’t so damn working class.

I’ve got broad shoulders on my back and
I’ve calloused palms, also feet.
I’ve built houses with my hands,
And very rarely will I eat meat.
My muscles are lean and fibrous,
I drink beer and smoke cigarettes.
I can run, swim and be tireless.
But I like building best.

I’ve acted tough and laughed too hard
I come off loud and crass,
I could’ve been an athlete
If I wasn’t so damn working class.

I have some precious gifts in me and
I can make music or write my thoughts.
I’ve built a knack for getting by
Without ever being taught.
I can crunch the numbers well
And beef my right ass pocket.
I prefer to create and not to sell
And play the blues, even rock it.

I still can’t breathe in space
But I’m never late for mass.
I could’ve been a genius
If I wasn’t so damn working class.

My arms were built to punish and
My words leans towards aggression.
But my face was built to smile and kiss
My hands for holdin’ - and carressin’
I’ve let so many people down and
Took dead aim and missed,
I’ve given up on finding mine
Because I know she don’t exist.

I’ve closed some ground and made some tracks
And I burn every bridge I pass.
I could’ve been a dreamboat
If I wasn’t so damn working class

I want to swim through every river and
Want to be able to cry when I’m sad.
I’m gonna scholarize and I’m gonna fight
And I want my kids to call me dad.
I want to build more buildings and
Fight in our next war.
I want to change as much as I do
And go where I haven’t been before.

I always dance across the Kennedy
Cause it hurts to watch cars whizz past.
I could be whatever I want
If I wasn’t so damn working class.

If I could do it again I’d change everything
And when I draw in my last,
I could’ve done so many things
If I wasn’t so damn working class.

Reader's Responses

Reader’s Response
Writing and knowing

“We’ve been told again and again to write what we know but we don’t trust that advice.”

“These and other poets began with the simple idea that what they saw and experienced was important to record, and that the modest facts of their lives, what they knew within the small confines of their limited, personal worlds, could contain the enduring facts and truths of the larger world.”

“No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”

“No one can call herself a poet unless she questions her ideas, ethics, and beliefs.”*******

“Good writing works on one premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone’s.”
 
Reader’s Response
The Music of the Line

“There is often no single correct way to do it.”

“Poets need to tune their ears as finely as musicians; that’s why reading poems aloud is a good idea, including your own poems as you write them.”

“The rhythms of certain lines also serve to intensify the contrasts in the poem.”

“Line lengths, ultimately, are something you develop a knack for by fooling around with them.”

“As we said earlier, there are no real rules, only effects.”
 
Readers Response
Images

“Images are closely linked to memory, that in fact many of our memories consist of images.”

“Magic. That’s what an image should do, produce a bit of magic, a reality so real it is ‘like being alive twice’”

“Images aren’t primarily visual.”

“Images are the rendering of your bodily experience in the world.”

“Never ask a question you can’t answer.”

Readers Response
Voice and Style
“We read contemporary writers and imitate their line breaks, or their similes, and worry that we shouldn’t, that we’ll only create bad reproductions instead of original works.”

“Beginning writers often sound remarkably alike, because they have the same limited range of choice; they haven’t yet discovered a wider range.”

“Writing and reading are the only ways to find your voice.”

“Ezra Pound said, “poetry should be at least as well-written as prose,” and we agree; bad grammar doesn’t fly in either one.”

“Know your work. Being aware of your stylistic strengths and weaknesses will not only help you grow, but will help you deal with criticism from others.”


Reader’s Response
Simile and Metaphor
“The use of figurative language isn’t a new skill; it’s one you already know.”

“One difference between good and not-so-good poets is that the good ones recognize when they’ve written stuff that deserves to be dumped, and load up the trucks.”

“Strong similes and metaphors are integral to a poem’s meaning; they aren’t merely clever comparisons tacked on.”

“Another thing about the figurative: it gives you access to words and images that wouldn’t be there otherwise.”

“This is one of the pleasures of both reading and writing poems: the recasting of one thing in terms of another, the revelation of the ways outwardly different can be seen to have a similar core.”

Boom City

Take off you pants and prepare to boom,
The kind of boom that makes flowers bloom,
The boom up your ass that stinks up the room.
Or post coitus boom when the coitus ends
The sweaty kind of boom you could text your friends.
Its why there are dudes who saw New Moon,
It’s the clamor that spurred all the media boom.
Its boomin’ inside all the fancy bars,
It sells perfume and pointy red cars.
Its that girl in a tree outside your room,
Its her Nikon camera with telescopic zoom.
It made Sinatra croon and all the ladies swoon,
So mommies and daddies could also boom.
It put the bug inside the cocoon
So he could could too, he wants to boom!
Even cowboys boomed in the saloon,
They boomed up the hoop of a prostitute.
The boom that makes the sky consume,
And fall to the sea in a great typhoon.
Boom like Brooke Shields on Blue Lagoon.
Its the flowers that are laid outside your tomb.
The equilateral triangle that seals your doom.
It’s a shame, its a chore, its a purpose, its a pity,
Its real fuckin’ real now. Boom city.

In My Own Skin

Tattoo parlors always smell like Vaseline,
You can smell it when they grind on my flesh.
And in one of the most ridiculous places,
Sits the forbidden, hidden when I’m dressed.

People generate different reactions to it,
Some say terrible, some really don’t mind.
It doesn’t matter to me either way,
They got their skin and don’t bother mine.