I wanna forego tradition,
But I wanna be taken serious
In quarters where knowledge matters,
Where beats and sounds can be scattered,
Where long lines that don't rhyme are better,
Where Whitman is king and everyone wants to be Eliot,
Where rhymes are the past's, structure is Poe's,
Where poems aren't raps that talk about hoes,
Where poets dream of being called post-mortem,
Where the nicest compliment is being post-modern,
Where asyndetonic plethoras are more than laundry lists,
Where they wait until you die and crown you king of the beats.
Where does this anxiety leave the poet?
I want to be fresh, dope, street-refined,
Free from this burden of creating an urn.
Maybe I misspelled it in the application,
But I'm not here to be a potter.
When you read his words on a page,
you know it's c*mmings.
You don't even have to touch the book;
Touch your own bootsoles and feel one of the roughs.
But what about me? Well I want the dead poets to come
off in the shower.