Screw it. I'm a poet. I know it. Hope I don't blow it.

Never mind, I'm just going to go ahead and post what I wrote today.
I don't really care that you all hate it
Plus, while I'm doing this, I'm not working on my paper.
I was listening to Sage Francis' "Makeshift Patriot" EP while I wrote it, so that almost certainly influenced most of what it is, except for the part about my shoulder, which was written while I was listening to Kanye West's "Through The Wire".

Untitled.

Wrote some things some people liked
But they long ago forgot those
An unremembered postseason
MVP like Jose Rijo
The only bling that I got
Holds my shoulder together
The steel pins in my bones
I'm gonna rock forever
I asked for platinum
But they gave me stainless steel
Went under that knife
Suddenly understood what was really real
I had tickets to the show
Turned 'em in for a sling and pills
Supposed to see Atmosphere
Instead I had time to kill
I don't have any tats
Just my hard earned scar tissue
'Cause when your shoulder's pierced
You kinda notice the real issues.
You used to the shadow
Warm yourself with hope of brighter days
Things go from worst to worse
But we keep on rhyming anyway
I ain't gonna sell my soul to you
But I might think about a rental
My problems only seem financial
I'm promising you they're really mental
We all want an eye for an eye
But no one's quite sure who to blind
We're in an existential crisis
But hell, is there any other kind?
All I want is the truth
But the truth is what I really fear
Gonna leave my voice on tracks
Just my way of saying I was really here

Like Eastwood I'm unforgiving
Telling Little Bill what he don't deserve
My front lobe has wild things
Tell me they don't want to stay on some preserve
Tempests in your teapot, yeah
That's why I'll stick to coffee
Starting to wonder just a little bit
Will my time ever be really free?
Swing low and behold
While I burn like a cigarette
Break my heart one more time
It ain't like I won't forget
Big screen plasma TV
But your picture still ain't clear
Give you enough to worry over
So you don't notice what you should fear
Big Brother might be watching, yo
I'm watching the prodigal son and his boys
Playing in the life-sized sandbox
And my neighbors are his soldier toys
When they're playin' they patriot games
They know it pays to load the dice
It breaks my heart that you don't listen
Cause I don't know I'll get to tell ya twice.

You might believe what you can see
But I only trust what the numbers say
Your money is your own I know
But I'll only spend what I gotta pay
You hit em low and I'll hit high
But I don't think that he'll fall
Cause when the shove comes back to push
I'm betting that he felt nothing at all
But the point was never to try and win
The goal was always just make 'em bleed
Just enough red and white cells maybe
To water and nourish this here seed.

Dispatches From Academia Hell- Final Transmission

The papers are coming together, albeit slowly. The Nabokov one might turn out all right, but the poetry paper is good and proper fucked. It's going to be a disjointed mess, and that's optimistic. I've discovered just how little I really think of Kevin Young's "Blues poetry". Nothing he wrote is as well-written or haunting as a Robert Johnson song, or even a good Howlin' Wolf song. I've decided modern poetry critics haven't actually read great poetry, but merely recent poetry. It's the only way I can think to explain how excited the critics sound in these blurbs. His conceit feels more like a dillentante than a clever twist on a great tradition. Franz Wright is actually a pretty good poet, although I've become increasingly convinced that Free Verse is just masturbation. When did meter become a bad thing? Blur was right. The Modern World is Rubbish.

I wrote a whole bunch of lyrics today (with a rhyme scheme!) They're basicly hip-hop lyrics, written in a sort of ABCB DEFE scheme. If Keith likes them, I'll probably post them here. Shit, even if he doesn't I might go ahead and do it. So all of you (both of you) have that Sword of Damocles hanging over your heads.

Only three more exams until I'm done with college. (Until, in about three or four years, I begin begging grad schools to let me in). At this point there is nothing bittersweet of the concept in and of itself. I'll dislike reality, but I really hate school right now. I'm tired of college students (present company excluded, if indeed any present company is reading.)