1. |
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|
Take it from me, now. Take it from me now.
These tempted trades are just shifting shades.
I've been freezing furnaces too long to stop now.
Don't take to me, now. Don't take to me now.
I'll break your face if you talk that way.
Let's not get sofisticuffortable now.
Return to me, now. You return to me now.
I take it all back. I'm just cold cut cuffs and bar graphs.
I love you. I love you. I do.
Say anything quick. This tryst is a reticent tenement.
(A E I O U S A S E T)
The words are hives and hints on the hides of pimps (sic).
(R E S P C A A C P C)
If this spit's anything to mix metaphors with, what's the medicine?
(1 9 9 9 1 9 9 9 9 9)
I'm clicking my ruby red slippers and telling myself:
There's no business is like show business is.
There's no business is like show business is.
There's no business is like show business is.
There's no business is like show business is.
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2. |
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I wanna keep four on the floor y'all. Back off of the measure.
Leisure time’s pleasures cleave beats with the clever.
Cup checker, every endeavor's like
Tether ball around a lightning rod in bad weather.
It's electric. Boogie oogie oogie.
I've created a monster, mating the cookie with the wookie.
Keep the cookies from the cookie, beat the wookie by a rook,
Spark the cipher and you've got a new definition of shook.
Look here. "I did it all for the nookie". (Note: this is quoting and mocking Limp Bizkit)
Woops! Did my ball point tip let the secret slip?
I keep a real tight lip but when the flapjacks flip,
A little synapse skip lets the syrup drip.
I let her rip. Just be careful you don't slip.
I mop floors with greasers and it gets a little slick
And you look a little stiff, like the cops said "Freeze"
And the temperature dropped to negative 53 degrees.
As for me, I'm still six degrees from Kevin Bacon.
The principle conducting Mr. Bacon's graduation
Knew a patient suffering from a complicated condition,
Sent to surgery by a veteran anesthetician,
Who on a friend's suggestion took a holiday in Rome,
And on returning home brought the friend some Roman stones.
The friend passed on the stones with shells from distant seas (Note: I imagined this being Uncle Milton)
To a lovely lady who would soon be giving birth to me.
And it's been 22 years since then.
Countrymen, friends, your ears me lend.
I'd like to introduce the new and improved Boo Radley,
Milton Bradley, Alexander the Great Gatsby.
Daddy needs a new pair of shoes and Boo's got an offer that you can't refuse.
So in the end don't get it confused. It's on you. Door one, door two, door one, door two.
I'm a be lounging in the back with Agnes, Agatha, Jermaine, and Jack.
So let me know when you're ready to choose. It's on you. Door one, door two, door one, door two.
I went to What to get some Why and asking How the way to get Where.
"Escrow" got some "Said so" talking "Like this way" to walk "There".
The weirdest thing about it was that When was at the scene
With an Oreo licking the creamy "Now" filling between.
But was it all a dream? The forests full of oak trees?
Bowie knifed hearts barking "I love Annie Oakley".
Annie Oakley's got an ass like a cupid's arrow bee-stinger.
We'll make a magnificent seventh heaven family full of gunslingers,
Practice on the mudskippers, Skipper and his Ginger.
Gilli-game on! Long johns and slippers.
And maybe they'll aspire to be field goal kickers,
If only Billy would stop cutting the pigskins with his scissors.
"Billy, how many times am I gonna have to tell you?
Never run with scissors in your hand. They might impale you.
Never run with scissors in your hand. They might impale you.
Never run with scissors in--" "Achoo!" "God Bless you."
And God bless every motherfucker on the planet.
But don't take my blessings all for granted.
I'll spark some slam dance American bandstand havoc
and food fight damage with a handful of Manwich.
"Put him in a body bag Johnnie!"
Mess with the Joe and it's gonna get sloppy.
Boo Radley's feeling slap happy.
Milton Bradley, Alexander the Great Gatsby.
Daddy needs a new pair of shoes and Boo's got an offer that you can't refuse.
So in the end don't get it confused. It's on you. Door one, door two, door one, door two.
I'm a be lounging in the back with Agnes, Agatha, Jermaine, and Jack.
So let me know when you're ready to choose. It's on you. Door one, door two, door one, door two.
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3. |
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|
You were in a run down daylight, walking with a suitcase nightlight,
Tugging at a t-shirt silkscreen image of a halfway bad dream.
I was in a stop light melee, screaming at a CB mayday
Coming through a tin can string line wrapped like a - - around my...
To help me remember...
I could hear your voice on the airwaves, cut by the cars on the freeway,
Run through a microphone mainline, plugged into a bullhorn landmine.
And I was stuck in snail's pace traffic, choking on a monk's bad habit,
Clenched on a chest quick shrinking, thumping to a - - in me.
That won't stop saying,
"I'll come get you as soon as you can find me.
I'll be running as fast as I can get there.
But this feels like I'm running forward wildly,
Searching for a voice behind me."
I was wrong. You were right beside me.
I was groping blindly until finally I...
I woke.
|
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4. |
Little Caesar
07:15
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|
I’ve got a voodoo doll and a temper—
Easy money, just insert your PIN and press enter.
Lunch money’s past due chump. Fuck a pay cut.
Time’s up, better get a cup.
I spin yarns like I weave with the P-Funk.
Sip a Yoo-Hoo and bop field mice like Little Bunny Foo Foo’s
Hands better seize up. Silly rabbit, when the
Fuck you gonna grow up? Own up and get down.
Sounds pretty honest to me.
I’d tend to walk a straight line if it wasn’t for the economy.
Shit, I’d panhandle, but my coozie weighs a ton.
(Diggety dun dun da dun dun, dun dun.)
I want it effective immediately.
Notify the media please and play it on every radio frequency.
There’s a big fucking hole in the bucket Liza.
“Fix it with a straw!” Fuck that.
Mambrino never looked better in a wash basin cap.
“Aren’t you making mountains out of molehills?”
No sir, I was making giants out of windmills. Get it?
Barry Bonds out of b-boy stances.
Let’s dance to the drummer beat. Drummer eat, sleep, dream
Leaves like the drummer be lumberjacking for beats.
The drummer straps trees to his feet for the traps
So that he can feel the bump in the trunk on the track
And I can have a map for my raps, see,
To warn future generations I’m a predative species.
I guess it’s just the Rikki Tikki Tavi in me
To run up and slap anything shaking a rattle at me.
So Tonka tinker toy battleship me. Bring it on.
You can bring a sack lunch if you want,
But Little Caesar’s all pizza pizza pissed off
And this motherfucker’s gon’ roll across the Rubicon, casting die like this.
Don’t stop getting it, don’t you stop getting, don’t don’t stop getting it, don’t stop.
Succotash raps keep sufferin a muck-rake plague;
And the caged bird sings like the putty tat’s prey;
And the cash cows graze through the fields of gold;
But the city’s like a maze for the hungry fold,
So the herds count sheep because the nights are cold.
And when the nights are cold, we all handle grenades
In the French one four in our footy PJs.
We burn sage for the ghosts that we save
In the hopes we can trade all our might for a may
As our Mardi Gras bead-draped throats all pray,
“Let the days carve lines in my face with age,
My slang blade take notes of the close shaves,
Slice quotes to deface the page and talk trash till my teeth decay.
And if my teeth decay, dig canals to preserve the waves,
Lay roots for the surf to lave, change moods with the moons we praise,
Drop fruit in the tides to bathe just in case they forget the name.”
It’s like that.
Don’t stop getting it, don’t you stop getting, don’t don’t stop getting it, don’t stop.
|
||||
5. |
Challenger
05:08
|
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|
Here we are again, head and heels.
They're all counting one to ten.
It's over now. K.O.
This is about the times.
It's about time.
This is about the times.
It's about time.
When my wagon comes, I'm already
counting down from ten to one.
Lift off.
Somewhere between every point and empty space is a fact:
there's no turning back. It's crazy. But everything is.
There was a time when I could afford to eat out.
Fiction's a face and I can't stand the taste now.
You are what you eat.
Standing. Walking. Running. Falling down and then...
Standing. Walking. Running. Falling down again.
It's about time.
This is about the times.
It's about time.
This is about the times.
It's about time.
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6. |
Man Down (Pigs)
05:36
|
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|
Please don’t speak, the street’s asleep.
Count sheep to creep beneath
Sheets so steep it’ll take a week at least
To get on down in one peace.
Get, get on down. I bare teeth like chimpanzees,
Break boughs for the gold leaf Hades keys.
Boo Radley sees what Grady needs—
Ways to move thick-skinned like baby’s knees.
I might tweak beats like Sadie’s
“Where’s Sadie? Where’s Sadie? There she is.”
But I look for the ‘rents and there are the kids
Like the kids have kids so the kids commit.
I’d tail spin scared stiff should the big kids split
Like “Where are kids going to fit in this relationship?”
My one half did the math while the fools rushed in
And watched the other half laugh, like “What did we miss?”
Did we miss Grinch-less Christ-Missus Claus kisses
While we drank the water in a
Tap-ten-dimes-for-a-dollar,-get-down-to-break-change
Into-four-quarter-hustles-like-player-got-game attack?
Pay no mind to that.
Work’s to be done, trails left to track,
Pigtails to tack to donkey backs. Don’t relax.
The pasture’s packed to the max.
The facts, ladies and gents,
Seem to suggest in my opponent’s closing comments,
A verdict as certain as our defense is
That our plea, “Beats me”, upholds innocence.
The picture he paints could be “Framed and Hung”
But let’s not take for granted that the case is closed.
If feats of wonder stumble on the frozen,
Let’s speak in parables and carol to the toes.
This little piggy went to marketplace,
To taste the veins in filets of hope.
A hard knock-knock life knocked twice prepared.
He came back with a rope and a ransom note that said,
“Please go easy on the sex offenders.
Keep seeds in the tangerines.
And if it’s one gasp or a last laugh, surrender.
Let thieves give a hand for an arm that bleeds.”
I’m just one “Man down” to keep the peace.
Just save a piece for me.
|
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7. |
Presto Change-O
07:31
|
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|
Pens and pencils, all such utensils of posthumous sound we prepare in the—
Grounds for changing the seat of our sect’s see are holy, hol—
Least of our worries should be botching our boarding class business on booking fees.
A business class ticket for free and I’d still vote presto change-
Oh no. Me oh my word.
You’ll trade your cap-a-pied
Toothscapes for toothless and grey
If you take my name.
Ghastly your gallant as made
Meal-piece or hero portrayed
Lies his favorite phrase and walks away.
“You won’t get left here. I’ll be right back. I’ll be right back.”
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8. |
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|
I want to get into this darlin',
Start to the fin to get marlin.
If I ever get the Wayans to weigh in,
I've got a hundred and fifty on Keenan.
I'm a merchant selling Ivory on the weekend.
Compare these bars to dove, forty-FIVE - love.
I've got a 45 glove for the fingerprints
And pack a 33 and a third for instruments.
Immigrants, I hear you need a VISA.
Yours expired in the 10/03.
It's too bad you need a VISA
To be everywhere you want to be.
So now you come see me
For a new D.O.B. and a new ID.
What do you think, a favor's free
From the grand vizier with a vis-a-vis?
You see, my favorite task is erasing pasts
To save aging acts and turn time back
For a new lease on life. Here's your life.
And here's your life on ice. There's a price you see.
A little kidney's played upon the organ trade
Because there's always more that need to be replaced.
For yours we'll trade and you can get a new face
And a taste of the black marketplace.
You might call me flamboyant,
Staying afloat by my glam-buoyance,
Lank long and lean in ladies jeans
And relishing in a fetish for the intimacy.
I mean, who's getting in her pants like me?
"Chicken-legged faggot motherfucker, I'm a break those twigs!"
They used to call me skinny
Until I french kissed Missy and skinned P. Diddy.
I wanna dissect the hit machine,
Ciphen the gall from the animal spleen,
Bogart the intestines, attempting
To walk where the animal's been,
Advene to lakes and streams,
A canteen and a diet of greens to stay lean,
Since I might scream and cause a scene
If I get too big for my britches and split the seams.
Aye, me! I should have warned you--
Nobody puts baby in the corner.
Cookie cut out city blocks and burbs
Because I'm sick of coloring inside white lines and curbs.
If you can't raise the roof, let's raise a barn.
If you don't stich and bitch, let's mend and darn.
If there's no space, we'll find a farm with haste
And make Country Baby for the black marketplace.
All I want is to breathe. (I am so thin)
Won't you breathe with me. (I am too thin)
Find a little space, so we move in between... /
Now we know, you let the biggest arms surround you now.
...And keep one step ahead of yourself /
Now we know, you let the biggest heart surround you now.
Assert yourself, don't hurt yourself.
I went from first degree black to berzerker belt.
We sell computer chip kiss and tell,
Hit transmit and skip the words themselves.
Kids, I rip the verse itself.
32-bit blitzkrieg fits on my C: best leave
Or the jet ski Gretski's gonna get trees out
To cross-check dumbfuck Canuck puck speeds.
See, I bleed the coasts,
Make Smothers blood brothers and bugger em both,
Sweetly brag and butter the boast,
Sit still and hope that I never see rope,
Keep my ends close and my frienemies closer,
Know wren to swallow my hawks and vultures.
High speed pens defend and set pace
And deface in the case of the black marketplace.
Donald and Linda,
Happy Anniversary.
Glen and Maureen,
Happy Anniversary.
Lois and Roger,
Happy Anniversary.
Sylvia and Terry,
Happy Anniversary.
Cindy and Carl,
Happy Anniversary.
Gary and Deborah,
Happy Anniversary.
Scott and Cheryl,
Happy Anniversary.
Melanie and Keith,
Happy Anniversary.
Happy Anniversary.
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9. |
Boots Of Spanish Leather
07:06
|
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|
Oh, I'm sailing away, my own true love.
I'm sailing away in the morning.
Is there something I can send you from across the sea,
From the place that I'll be landing?
No, there's nothing you can send me, my own true love.
There's nothing I wish to be owning.
Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled,
From across that lonesome ocean.
Oh, but I just thought you might want something fine,
Made of silver or of golden,
Either from the mountains of Madrid
Or from the coast of Barcelona.
Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean,
I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss,
For that's all I'm wishing to be owning.
That I might be gone a long time
And it's only that I'm asking.
Is there something I can send you to remember me by,
To make your time more easy passing?
Oh, how can, how can you ask me again?
It only brings me sorrow.
The same thing I want from you today,
I would want again tomorrow.
I got a letter on a lonesome day.
It was from her ship a-sailing,
Saying “I don't know when I'll be coming back again,
It depends on how I'm a-feeling.”
Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way
I'm sure your mind is roaming.
I'm sure your heart is not with me,
But with the country to where you're going.
So take heed, take heed of the western wind,
Take heed of the stormy weather.
And yes, there's something you can send back to me:
Spanish boots of Spanish leather.
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10. |
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|
So what you’re telling me now is you’ve got a gremlin growing on your insides with a lock pick claw,
Setting booby traps in a nucleus of your cell wall.
The little guy gets around too.
And though a simple visit to the physician shouldn’t concern you,
Your past life’s got an address
And it’s set in the short breath that the docs left when they cut flesh.
The edge of your breast attests, “That’s life”
And every other close call isn’t just a short knife.
But it’s no use. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep.
You can’t breathe. You can’t keep
Telling everybody else that it’s okay.
And I can’t keep being a diversion until the surgeons go away.
It’s the same shit, just a different day.
And though I couldn’t illustrate the mechanism, it’s evident in the way
That you stared at the Portland sun when you moved from LA.
It’s in the back pain that the docs couldn’t explain away.
We’re just a couple of redcoats, mad that we missed the boats,
Bayonets slipped and slit our throats. Quote:
“It isn’t like the frequency with which I’ve heard you speak on how you wished that you were dead
Has ever made a different impression on me than that this is for the best.”
You’re upset. Next step: add insult to injury,
Abandoning you in a time of need because you act like the world bleeds
And I can’t watch you feed on it from another coast and guess, like
“ Is it best to let it rest?” There’s a voice in my chest and it says,
“Are you ready to go? Then let’s go. Say so. Give up the ghost.”
Days, weeks, months,
Turn into things we want to change
And it’s been a long time since we last spoke.
I thought you were broken, so I’m glad to receive your note and
I’m up in Cambridge now. The band’s doing well.
I’ve been working in the local bookstore for a spell.
To keep my sanity I fondue beats in an inkwell
Because half of the time I manage to make my home life hell.
Meg says, “All I want is an apology once in a while”
And Dev says, “That’s exactly what we’d all expect from an only child”—
Turning all of my familiar friends into adversaries in my own home.
I’ve got a rash tongue and admit it like you don’t already know.
I tried to call you on the phone but your father said he’d rather take a message than offend sentiments.
C.f. Precedence for abusive and selfish and psychologically malignant men.
I don’t want to be the next son of a bitch ex and set a trend.
When these days replay, I let the gloves fit
Like “Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten it wet and maybe I shouldn’t have fed it.
Maybe it’s true that you act like that but maybe I shouldn’t have said it.”
And my chest heaves like a hornet’s nest every breath I regret how it ended.
All the pieces of our time set to snapshot fit a soundtrack and I stacked
Two discs with a playlist I’m afraid you’ll never unpack.
And when the times come that I catch them, each song’s lost to the toast:
“Are you ready to go? Let’s go. Say so. Give up the ghost.”
|
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11. |
||||
|
Struggle to chew your way through an apple core.
Stutter to spit the seeds through an open door.
And you worked the fields and you grazed the fold
Until you finally fit the mold.
Fickle to fan the flames of a golden bowl.
Chuckle to chase your tail down a rabbit hole.
Because you jumped the gun and you dropped the ball
And you’ve got to break the fall.
We’ll map all the places that we want to go.
But with billions of lanes to take and race and ways to lose control,
We can state the case and case this joint and still have missed the point.
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine, shine in, shine in.
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12. |
It Ends In The Street
05:00
|
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|
I let a nez perce burner strike first. Sentences leave them senseless.
MENSA tests meant to lambast the mixmast shred sails to mincemeat.
It’s mean. I end means where ends meet, so piqued to receive each
Going-out-of-business sale receipt for Fleet Feet sneaks that leak.
I’m a keep the returns that I earn in the week in my sheets
And believe that my sweet dreams turn profits when I turn pillows for my teeth.
It’s just wishful thinking. Stop blinking. Stop thinking.
Cut off my head from my neck, my hand would keep inking,
Fingertip quills to stitch quilts and cry for what milk’s spilt,
All set to handle my hilt with folks of that ilk.
It stands to reason I could stand to Reason. You set the traps
And I’ll start the bleeding. There are sharks to catch and catches in the readings.
If the tank teems, we’ll trade tanks for tees and bees for bees knees,
Cheese for the ABCs of trees leaves, off-cuffs for up-sleeves,
Find on the seas, the hills, and the keeps a place to leave these
“Fuck”s for a “beep” and sheep for the wolves.
The bait’s in the bleat.
I guess all depends on how space descends, reclined or set steep.
The times turn the lens and the best talk’s cheap and it ends in the street.
The times tend to keep the way space descends on end and set steep.
If you take offense, then let’s make amends when it ends in the street.
|
||||
Initials B.R. Boston, Massachusetts
Gold-school rap for the aught-age.
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