Take Control of Your Culture - American Studies - Blog

War in Iraq?

It’s just not the same

Things have changed

I knew at this instant,

My life would rearrange.

The hints were small shrubs,

Living in a forest of lies.

I couldn’t do anything,

Cuz I wasn’t yet that wise

It’s just not the same

Things have changed

I knew at this instant,

My life would rearrange.

But in fact those small shrubs haven’t changed

Nor have they grown.

Maybe if they had, I already would have known.

It’s just not the same

Things have changed

I knew at this instant,

My life would rearrange.

Now the table is turning, the poor heart is burning.

I no I cant take this alone.

But if you knew the pains that are

Fated to fill your cup before you reach the shore

then maybe one day you wont want it anymore.

Hip Hip poem

OK. BY the way i  wrote this poem before any ot those songs about hip hop being dead cam eout. I wrote it in 2006 for the POetry slam and i thought that it fit intot these discussions about hip hop and rap. So... Here it is.

What have we created?

People think that all blacks and these ignorant rappers are related

Hip Hop used to be an art

But that Idea was torn apart

I can’t seem to get the pieces back together

I wake up for hip-hop, but will hip-hop ever wake up for me?

I remember when I first woke up to Hip-Hop

I skulked up to my brother’s room

The base was so loud,

The birds dropped out the sky,

Feeling the vibrations of his vigorous freestyle

He was rehearsing for the

Irving

school talent show

Dancing to house of pain,

Saying.
”JUMP AROUND, JUMP AROUND, JUMP UP JUMP UP AND GET DOWN”

(Laughing) Well, I don’t know if me aging so quickly,

Or the music is changing rapidly

But now that I understand it

I wish things were how they were before.

(Pause)

I don’t accept that all blacks are ignorant

Everyone is in their own different ways, you must admit

I’m so sick of it that Im sick with it

So sick that I vomit on this hip-hop game

It’s a pain that people talk about such beauty with such shame

I’m irritated

Crime and unintelligence leads The Game to complete irrelevance

Sometimes I read over these lines and im baffled that were selling this

Misogynistic, egotistic, simplistic style
dies

We’ve already got the roots, common, and J5

Im surprised

I wake up, look in the mirror, and ask myself…

Is hip hop still alive?

America

They got into the huddle-

The quarterback called out the play-

they got out of the huddle with such confidence-

The play had been working all day, all season long

They were sure they would score

They always did I theses situations

Even though it had not been an easy game

They demonstrated they superiority through out

They got set

The lineman in the line of scrimmage got ready for their fight

The quarterback yelled out the counts

But they weren’t prepared for what they saw

A formation that they have never seen

The defense was outsmarting them

A defense, which they have been dominating for the better part of the game.

But they weren’t prepared

The center snapped the ball

The quarterback snapped the ball

And the defense came with all they had-

Something they hadn’t done through out the game

A blitz

The quarterback never saw it coming

He was hit from all sides

He dropped the ball

It was picked up by one of the defenders and taken back 90 yards for a touchdown

The offense was baffled

They weren’t expecting a blitz

When they came back out onto the field

They called the same play

The defense lined up the same way

The center snapped the ball and the quarterback stepped back to through

But will he see the blitz coming once again?

American Is A Car

The steering wheel are the people
But who are the hands driving the wheel
Mafia? Drug dealers? The government?
The headlights are the news
Helping people see outside world
The pedals are the companies getting America started
Going forward to find barriers and turns
Find an intersection to meet new people
Only to have the conflict to go first
The oil to be turned to energy for the car
Always running and running out
The man in the white house are the gears
Telling how fast or slow we go
The air bags are the rebels
Trying to save and change America
Seatbelts are police
They always want t o protect us
But sometimes they can hurt us
America is the whole body of the car
Changing every year.

America is a School Teacher

America is a schoolteacher
Dedicating their lives
To the young lives of America
Teaching and adding
But never subtracting
From the lives of future America
Total control
There out numbered
Never ceasing
From their textbook teachings
No child left behind
Classify the kids by their grades
Less A’s by the days

America is a schoolteacher
Dedicated to the lies
Difference frowned upon
No longer teaching
But rather they’re preaching
The ideas in school are now a cesspool

Different Views about America

America

is trash and is portrayed to be great.

America

is a box of Jellybeans, full of different people, colors and sizes.

America

is the backbone of all families and is demanding in everyway.

DIFFERENT VEIWS

America

is misleading and lustful.

America

is the box that so many humans are trapped in.

America

is the Queen of all Kings, and Mother of all sons

DIFFERENT VEIWS

America

only thinks for it’s self 

America

runs from other countries, who threaten them,

But

America

protects her kids when the neighborhood bully comes around.

DIFFERENT VIEWS

Look at police brutality, to grandmothers of this

America

having to choose between medicine and grocery.

From 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina

………. But,

America

has been a country that other people would die to come to.

DIFFERENT VIEWS

Do those people understand what we go threw, 3.50 for a gallon of gas

Let’s not talk about candy and pop

But

America

is a place that other countries look for for guidance.

Realize that no matter how

Your view

Or your view

Or your view

Is of

America

Recognize that it’s

Ok to have

DIFFERENT VIEWS OF

AMERICA

America

Starbursts are delicious

Different types of packages

So many flavors to choose from

Six to be exact

Seven if it you include Optimus Lime

I swipe my card of identification

My mom losses 60 cents

But you gotta spend to get in this world!

Its gotta be that brand name, 9 letter word

That's half the fun

The delicious candy is wrapped in so much paper

it reminds me of Christmas,

I don't know which is better!

But like all good things

this magical candy losses its flavor.

Well there's always tomorrow

America is a Box of Jelly Beans

Every bean is different.

Different colors...

Black,

White,

Blue,

Yellow,

Different Shapes...

Short,

Long,

Round,

Different Tastes...

Sour Apple,

Sweet Cherry,

Tangy Bannana,

You can't tell what its going

to taste like by looking at it's color.

The beans are trapped,

Trapped inside the box...

until they are eaten.

America

The rich
The geeks
The emo
The wannabe's

We begin total stangers and end with some friends
Mentors dishing work
Faces in and out
A series of hi's and bye's

Bustling commotion
Perpetual obstacles
Surrounded by drama
Remebering th good times, trying to forget the bad
A beginning starts with an end

The popular
The freaks
The gothic
The you

Tell Me America

All eyes are on the smartest, prettiest or people with money

That does the talking for them.

The circulating pressure causes the majority to drop out,

And the rest are left grinning with absolute pride

A young boy loses his life

To an intoxicated driver whose vision

So blurred, nobody else existed.

Only, there was a child wandering alone in the darkness,

Trying to find meaning in his life

But that chance was taken by a six pack of beer.

The mere thought of seeing past those pupils of greed and ignorance,

Useless

While one is standing tall,

The other starts to fall.

Rightfully, who is the winner?

Tell me America

People serving time for someone else's crime

What happened to justice?

Tell me America

Job Applications pushed aside

Because of the applicants' heritage or sexual orientation

No one should ever have to face losing an unfair fight

When will the odds be even?

Tell Me America

America/Broken Glass

Drop and Crash, Crack and Break
Knocked off the edge pushed too far
Liquids spread around the ground
The insides poured out

Sky diving off a table
Cutting the air

Refractions of hope break off into beams of dreams
From the light of despair
And the blaze of tribulation

Cracks of intricacy
Leave a shattered lattice

In an upshot
Crystalline structures crater

For a second, time stops
But pint sized diamonds and broken faith
Recoil from the earth inches in the sky
Only to come down with gravity's hasty drag

Time re-institutes it's self on life's mantle
It blends and sticks to life to form existence
From that existence
Hope Love Virtue and Glory is born

Yet like glass
life can shatter
leaving behind, Agony Hate and Despair

What is Poetry?

My opinion of poetry  is that in order to be a good poet, you have to have imagery. The definition of imagery is when you write a poem. Your reader has to vision or understand what you are saying.

For example, If I say I'm a home that would be boring. But if I say, I am in a jail cell full of annoying siblings, who yell all the time and talks way to much.

Then I think that you could vison a bunch of annoying kids standing around yelling and talking. I think that poets usually write about their experiences and Ideas. I also think that when poets write they express there feelings with words.

Poetry has been in the world for many different generations.  I think that the song "Follow the Drinking Gord". Sang by the slaves in the 1800's, was an example of poetry. I also think the the "Wade in the Water" also sang by the slaves was an example of poetry.

During these songs, a lot of Imagery was used during those songs back in the day. My last example of good poetry would be a poem/song made my a rapper well know by the name Lupe Fiasco.

This song is called the cool and during this song he talks about a man who was killed. He left is grave and went to the same spot where he was shot and thought about the times before he was killed. This is an excellent poem that I feel everyone should read.

Jail Cell

Handcuffs slapped on the wrist of the innocent
Brought down to the station
All freedom is lost
Your at your new home
Expected to do what you your told no questions asked
stuffed in a cell with a complete stranger
Who you have to walk the line and even shower with
you never imagined
such cruelty  back at home
thought you'd get married and have two kids
well you can scratch that because you doing life
you aren't going back so get use to the environment