Original rap/poetry by Larry Montague. Copyright © 2012 Larry Montague. Permission required for reproduction.

"write on"

i tell him meet me in the morning
i’ll be up with the birds eatin raisin bran yawnin
dip in my brush to paint the tree tops in autumn
gettin a rush like everything i see is awesome
click to mtv on the tube, there’s kids swarmin
tryin’a be cool just like the Earth ‘cause it’s warmin
we used to play hoops at the church, my friend’s mormon
now i use beats to retreat—they give me shelter when it’s stormin
my teacher said spell the word right ‘else you don’t get credit
so i imbed it in my head, memorize it then forget it from one to the next second
eventually reappears as a sentence in this record
but if i never said it i bet it just wastes effort
rememberin letters instead of a better-placed method
thinkin ain’t certain; certain is the searchin
so get outside and live it up—quit workin


whether you’re creepin on facebook or got your face in a book
notice that it differs in the space between
the front door and yourself, full throttle your health
it’s cliche—don’t follow your dreams
send ‘em threats, stalk ‘em day and night
‘til they know you’re here to fight for your rights and your light
‘cause you can’t imagine what would happen if they turned up absent
you’d be absent minded
in a world where degrees are gold, that’s your path to find it
although perhaps math class just seems mindless
they give you x, y’s unknown—like please find this
i x it out then write ‘y we gotta find this?’
if i take a test, why you gotta time it?
if i don’t staple my five-page paper you won’t take her
even though i wasted a sunny saturday to make her?
i don’t hate her, that’s just how the line swings
but i’ll burn this building down if she don’t give me my stapler

thomas jeff—he penned ‘all men created equal’
while he owned chained people, whipped and mad feeble
man is that evil
the only thing we’re equal in is how we treat others like foes and not brothers
we’ll sink six feet with souls that got smothered
sold, lost and never resdiscovered
animals will thrive and the trees will be live
and big birds will fly free in the sky without thousands of jets
how can i envision the demise of my own race
where many are tainted like the times bonds touched homeplate?
know faith, no fate—life is all that we got
we know positive’s good, we know negative’s not
but you need both at the basic levels of matter to form bonds
we destroy ours by holdin arms
pointin ‘em essentially at ourselves
locked behind bars, convicted and charged
that’s chemically balanced