cry havoc (to thine own self be hip):
a response to hamlet’s existential question for men who have considered suicide
to is or not to is that be the dig
so you’re tripping about whether ti’s hipper to let this world’s mishegaas
habitat your head or to dirt-nap yourself like some necrophilic worm
and hope that by copping some irreversible zzzz’s
to ka-pow the thousand ouches living in skin decrees
(methinks the brother doth kvetch too much)
lord what a fool this mortal be
all that suicide stuff you’re talking as for my part it’s greek to me
so now is the winter of your discontent
when both cheeks sting in existential lament
and what you really need now is a brotherly back pat
and all this world keeps giving is hard slaps
yes the milk of human kindness seems curdled and funky
and your throat is so close to the noose
and nobody seems to love you but your mama
and well she might be lying to you too
i can dig it
and so could the cat from strat he warned us that when sorrows come
they wouldn’t come singular and they don’t do they
and when sorrows show up they don’t come to play x-box baby
they come to play you like a pipe
to bring the ides of march down on your head
see if you got the stay for the fight
they come to make you want to out, out brief candle as they blow ill winds your way
make you want to give up cause life’s a rock you’ve got to roll up hill each day
but you swallow the red in your mouth look your demon dead in the eye
then quicken your belly fire and through blood- stained. teeth: CRY HAVOC
and let slip the dogs of ass kick
you’ve got to put your shoulder to that rock and grunt (repeat
time to stand up and kick a little sand up
time to reach down deep and retrieve whatever you have left
time to find that part
of the animal you are that still believes in breath my man
time to beast up off that canvas
time to beat that can’t into can
time to sculpt yourself by the hammer and chisel of your own hand
time to do more than just take it pretend and fake it
whine cry and complain
time to get hissing at whoever’s been spitting
on your head and got you believing it’s rain
got you convinced that life is no more than the signifying shadow
of an idiot’s furious moan no! hang on brother hang on and on and on
and don’t you out, out brief candle as that an ill wind blows your way
don’t give up cause life’s a rock you’ve got to roll up hill each day
No, you swallow the red in your mouth look your demon dead in it’s eye
quicken your belly fire and through blood. stained. teeth: CRY HAVOC
and let slip the dogs of ass kick.
put your shoulder to that rock and grunt (repeat)
you can snatch your self back from the precipice
re-ignite what lightning is left in your lungs
there’s no need to rush toward your last breath brother
cause it’ll come oh yes it will come
cause even golden lads and girls all must
like migrant workers one day come to dust and you’re right none of us living under yarmulke crescent or cross
can cop the science behind what happens when the curtain comes down
but for now become a piece of work man noble your reason infinite your faculty
angel your action and learn to apprehend like a god
yes we are at times the masters of our own fates though it seems we’re under under heaven’s spell but both fault and our deliverance are not in our stars dear brother
but somewhere deep in ourselves
foolish mortal be the stuff on which your dreams are made though you shake with fears and regrets
yes perhaps all the world is a stage player but this ain’t your exit yet
so don’t you out, out brief candle as that an ill wind blows your way
don’t give up cause life’s a rock you’ve got to roll up hill each day
No, you swallow the red in your mouth look your demon dead in it’s eye
quicken your belly fire and through blood. stained. teeth: CRY HAVOC
and let slip the dogs of ass kick.
put your shoulder to that rock and grunt (repeat)
a response to hamlet’s existential question for men who have considered suicide
to is or not to is that be the dig
so you’re tripping about whether ti’s hipper to let this world’s mishegaas
habitat your head or to dirt-nap yourself like some necrophilic worm
and hope that by copping some irreversible zzzz’s
to ka-pow the thousand ouches living in skin decrees
(methinks the brother doth kvetch too much)
lord what a fool this mortal be
all that suicide stuff you’re talking as for my part it’s greek to me
so now is the winter of your discontent
when both cheeks sting in existential lament
and what you really need now is a brotherly back pat
and all this world keeps giving is hard slaps
yes the milk of human kindness seems curdled and funky
and your throat is so close to the noose
and nobody seems to love you but your mama
and well she might be lying to you too
i can dig it
and so could the cat from strat he warned us that when sorrows come
they wouldn’t come singular and they don’t do they
and when sorrows show up they don’t come to play x-box baby
they come to play you like a pipe
to bring the ides of march down on your head
see if you got the stay for the fight
they come to make you want to out, out brief candle as they blow ill winds your way
make you want to give up cause life’s a rock you’ve got to roll up hill each day
but you swallow the red in your mouth look your demon dead in the eye
then quicken your belly fire and through blood- stained. teeth: CRY HAVOC
and let slip the dogs of ass kick
you’ve got to put your shoulder to that rock and grunt (repeat
time to stand up and kick a little sand up
time to reach down deep and retrieve whatever you have left
time to find that part
of the animal you are that still believes in breath my man
time to beast up off that canvas
time to beat that can’t into can
time to sculpt yourself by the hammer and chisel of your own hand
time to do more than just take it pretend and fake it
whine cry and complain
time to get hissing at whoever’s been spitting
on your head and got you believing it’s rain
got you convinced that life is no more than the signifying shadow
of an idiot’s furious moan no! hang on brother hang on and on and on
and don’t you out, out brief candle as that an ill wind blows your way
don’t give up cause life’s a rock you’ve got to roll up hill each day
No, you swallow the red in your mouth look your demon dead in it’s eye
quicken your belly fire and through blood. stained. teeth: CRY HAVOC
and let slip the dogs of ass kick.
put your shoulder to that rock and grunt (repeat)
you can snatch your self back from the precipice
re-ignite what lightning is left in your lungs
there’s no need to rush toward your last breath brother
cause it’ll come oh yes it will come
cause even golden lads and girls all must
like migrant workers one day come to dust and you’re right none of us living under yarmulke crescent or cross
can cop the science behind what happens when the curtain comes down
but for now become a piece of work man noble your reason infinite your faculty
angel your action and learn to apprehend like a god
yes we are at times the masters of our own fates though it seems we’re under under heaven’s spell but both fault and our deliverance are not in our stars dear brother
but somewhere deep in ourselves
foolish mortal be the stuff on which your dreams are made though you shake with fears and regrets
yes perhaps all the world is a stage player but this ain’t your exit yet
so don’t you out, out brief candle as that an ill wind blows your way
don’t give up cause life’s a rock you’ve got to roll up hill each day
No, you swallow the red in your mouth look your demon dead in it’s eye
quicken your belly fire and through blood. stained. teeth: CRY HAVOC
and let slip the dogs of ass kick.
put your shoulder to that rock and grunt (repeat)
boston
(a very unlikely love poem)
hey boston! i dig you. no, i big dig you. big dig how every night
you make stars & street lamps fight for the right to light you
big dig your beanpot of asphalt, glass & rubber
how you make clean-hands and dirty-work sister & brother
how each year it’s once more unto the academic breach
with your armies of educators fighting to teach
your hard-headed students
some of who get
groggily foggy every night as they work late by dim desk light
to scale the menacing heights
of your formidable scholastic walls
boston, i big dig each & every all
of your taverns: those townie caverns
where both blue & white-collar gather to holler out their dreams.
bean? look out your myriad windows & big dig the scene
of all those who fell in love with you so many years ago
see them on your corners
from mattapan to wonderland jamaica plain to the cambridge border
big dig them in their cars weaving through your streets
(getting lost on your streets such as they are)
those paved over cow paths that somehow have
a laughable sort of chaotic order
boston? girlfriend? baby? …we need to talk.
see, i’ve noticed lately that when you & i take a walk
along the common
you seem to have a brahmin-like need for power,
this need to seethe & glower
at the human race through a face wet with17th century sweat
& you seem to thrive off telling people no, hell no, not you & not yet
& i admit that in the early days
i couldn’t understand your wicked ways & this made me upset!
& i still get more than a little miffed at the fact
that your Statehouse never seems to miss nor lack
new ways in which
to tax––
boston? how come when i need to call you your phone is never on?
or, when i need to blue, green, orange & red line swing
in order to blow off a little steam
your t-trains refrain at 1 in the morn?
but, then again at dawn
when your freshly-coffeed head begins its rattle & hum
i can’t stay mad for long
especially when i hear you stirring next to me
yawning awake by yonder light that breaks out of easty
piercing as fiercely as the bleating of bagpipes
& the beating of afro-celtic drums
boston, you are one curious flex of beacon hill will
& mass ave muscle dot ave bustle & com ave. moan,
washerwoman, student & cab-driver hustle
singing freshly minted immigrant songs
inside these crazy amazing gifts of drifting new england snow
so… yeah, boston? i dig you
even though there are days you are a real pain in the back… bay…
i gotta say: i big dig you
big dig the artists, writers, musicians, designers & the crazy poets
you keep inviting & creating...
like some seriously therapy-needing mother
whose love both nurtures & smothers
her children & others
even though all the while her dirty water keeps breaking
Let’s Take it Back
(A stray thought on ethno-musicology and socio-linguistics)
By Regie Gibson
chorus:
let’s take it back to the dawn of time
before technology tamed our minds
a man took his hands and began to clap
and that was the beginning of the boom boom bap
let’s take it back to the dawn of time
before technology tamed the mind
a woman started humming to an animal’s call
and that was the beginning of the yes yes y'all
yes yes y'all yes yes y'all it’s like that
it’s like that it’s like that y’all
it’s like that y’all! it’s like that y’all!
it’s like that it’s like that it’s like that
well, once again here we are again:
needing to feel what it means to be skin
needing to feel the systole and the diastole
get rolled into poetry and music that expresses the soul
we all know the body has an intelligence
the intellect cannot dismiss
it’s a consequence of bio-cultural experience
but let’s take a quick trip and get a sense
of what it means for you and me to be human beings
back in a time of which we can’t recall
when our ancestors drummed in the hum of night
beneath these same stars they believed were gods
shining down as they danced by the firelight
their bodies cast shadows their voices began grunting
in imitation of the animals they would be hunting
on the next day to provide food for their tribe
this was a ritual intended to recognize
that life is born of death like sunrise and set
cycles from east to west the drums would beat and feet began to step
moving from right to left the men leapt as the chants
began to rise from the women’s breath
this is why music and poetry has always called our blood
it’s been this way since we crawled from the mud
it’s an ancient thing banging in the body and mind
that we’ve been grooving to people since the dawn of time
[chorus]
so, whether irish or english or spanish danish or swedish
polish, russian or turkish, italian, german or kurdish
japanese or assyrian, javanese or armenian
portuguese or hungarian, hebrew, zulu, bavarian
it’s doesn’t matter what tongue you speak all languages have a beat
the body instinctively translates into music see
what science has found is we are creatures of sound
and that our ears need to seek rhythmic patterns of human speech
like the words that i’m rippin’ you hear the rhythm that’s in them
even before you get a hint of any content i’m kicking
you may first think nothing of it then the verbal percussion
begins drumming in your ears and then your blood begins rushing
your pulses start throbbing your head begins bobbing
as you feel the effect of what the rhythms been plotting
it’s gotten your mind to synchronize its alpha waves and realize
rhythm’s in more than music but it structurally underlies
each and every atom to plasma scattered on saturn
every stage of matter is organized in rhythmic patterns
which are architectonic for everything has a tonic
everything has a cycle has a sonic and phonic
all life depends upon it we’re engineered to want it:
this thing that remains refrains comes back is chronic
this thing that haunts us all like a ghost in the mind
that we’ve been dancing with since the dawn of time
[chorus]
(A stray thought on ethno-musicology and socio-linguistics)
By Regie Gibson
chorus:
let’s take it back to the dawn of time
before technology tamed our minds
a man took his hands and began to clap
and that was the beginning of the boom boom bap
let’s take it back to the dawn of time
before technology tamed the mind
a woman started humming to an animal’s call
and that was the beginning of the yes yes y'all
yes yes y'all yes yes y'all it’s like that
it’s like that it’s like that y’all
it’s like that y’all! it’s like that y’all!
it’s like that it’s like that it’s like that
well, once again here we are again:
needing to feel what it means to be skin
needing to feel the systole and the diastole
get rolled into poetry and music that expresses the soul
we all know the body has an intelligence
the intellect cannot dismiss
it’s a consequence of bio-cultural experience
but let’s take a quick trip and get a sense
of what it means for you and me to be human beings
back in a time of which we can’t recall
when our ancestors drummed in the hum of night
beneath these same stars they believed were gods
shining down as they danced by the firelight
their bodies cast shadows their voices began grunting
in imitation of the animals they would be hunting
on the next day to provide food for their tribe
this was a ritual intended to recognize
that life is born of death like sunrise and set
cycles from east to west the drums would beat and feet began to step
moving from right to left the men leapt as the chants
began to rise from the women’s breath
this is why music and poetry has always called our blood
it’s been this way since we crawled from the mud
it’s an ancient thing banging in the body and mind
that we’ve been grooving to people since the dawn of time
[chorus]
so, whether irish or english or spanish danish or swedish
polish, russian or turkish, italian, german or kurdish
japanese or assyrian, javanese or armenian
portuguese or hungarian, hebrew, zulu, bavarian
it’s doesn’t matter what tongue you speak all languages have a beat
the body instinctively translates into music see
what science has found is we are creatures of sound
and that our ears need to seek rhythmic patterns of human speech
like the words that i’m rippin’ you hear the rhythm that’s in them
even before you get a hint of any content i’m kicking
you may first think nothing of it then the verbal percussion
begins drumming in your ears and then your blood begins rushing
your pulses start throbbing your head begins bobbing
as you feel the effect of what the rhythms been plotting
it’s gotten your mind to synchronize its alpha waves and realize
rhythm’s in more than music but it structurally underlies
each and every atom to plasma scattered on saturn
every stage of matter is organized in rhythmic patterns
which are architectonic for everything has a tonic
everything has a cycle has a sonic and phonic
all life depends upon it we’re engineered to want it:
this thing that remains refrains comes back is chronic
this thing that haunts us all like a ghost in the mind
that we’ve been dancing with since the dawn of time
[chorus]
