Rhapsody 2012

ō

ō

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She lingered, bubbling up from within (had I known in advance that the stripes of not a wristwatch, only a wristband I wish to return someday) and gathered the last of her belongings from just a thought.

Fades into the flowers, burning irises but he never looked back at the speed of light (I can’t anymore, so I shan’t).

It began as a flob, fumbling and failing. Hand slipping from hand, eyes darting. Two lonely people, stranded, willingly, combating to unearth some common ground.

No faint sound emerged from my lips as no sound could exist then, and his glacial look under moonlight scared me.

A glint, a flicker, midnight fervor took control. The needles that pricked me were tacked to my spine. We moved in our own time, opposite forces counterbalancing each other.

Palm pressed with palm, eyes closed. Melt the icecap mountaintop, it crumbled.

I saw the pines on the first night when the stars would appear shapeless in the sky. Hours later, when the sun rose, it burned with an intensity unfelt before.

I sat sipping tea on the back porch; you stood over there in the middle of the yard, facing the boulders, spine arched backwards, breathing in the pine air.

I’d love to know the lyrics of the song I almost heard Because the melody of silence eternally decimates And the echoes of this moment will evade reality Yet their symphony conquers my soul.

There was a trickle of a breath of longing for hope Of a cosmic renovation on a cellular scale— Patiently, I wait for the tepid call of moonshine— Your visage is a daydream too beautiful for me.

A lukewarm winter, Hushed by fiery spring.

Which is uglier?

One would choose The spring, if only because Of the bugs.

From time to time I hit the lights, make shadow puppets and fly kites— Make pancakes shaped like dinosaurs and sock skate across the kitchen floors.

Break out my paint brush, drench the walls, Draw scenes of us along the halls— I take a nap with pen in hand; Play guitar, become a band.

The day has passed and night has come: I lose my shoes and start to run.

Then I’m back home, and check my phone “No Missed Alerts”: I’m still alone.

I realize now the day’s too long, Or maybe I’m the one who’s wrong— Another dream takes me away, Hoping you’ll be here one day.

Petrichor emerges from the afterthought of the storm this perfume of nature tingles my senses lowering me into a state of melancholy, sad for what was and what had been washed away by the waves of our despair

Death can smear a spear with blood And stain the heart with pain.

It can drown the music of a smile And steal the spirit away.

But Death can never reach your Soul, For some you parted to me When you stroked away my icy tears Or soaked my heart in cheer.

I shall never hold your breath again, Or catch the grin in your eyes.

Still, to me belongs a memory— Ah yes! that will suffice.

Peaks steep from great heights Wanderlust sparks fire within Tomorrow awaits

Anonymous

There once was a man From Nantucket, who got lost In the wrong poem

Matt Pasquale

The masses (kg) ask me “How do you get the answer?”

Reply, work backwards They say butterflies Cause all of the hurricanes They don’t—it’s the moths

Roger Liu

Matt Pasquale

Expectations and Ambitions slow to a stop Presence: a virtue

Josh Wan

I’d really rather Not submit to Rhapsody ’cause sleep is better

Jenni Cullen

import java.sentience.*; public class think extends live{ boolean isAlive = true; public static void main(String[] args){ while(isAlive){ super.sleep(); super.eat(); super.respire(); try{ super.reproduce(); getFame(); getFortune(); } catch(NullPointerException e); System.out.println("I think, therefore I am"); } //if my thoughts were not my own, how could I tell? //software made of bits or wetware made of cells //it doesn't matter either way //this doubt in either case will stay System.exit(0); }

Come live with me, and be my love, Where your mind and body can rest.

My branch will hold you like a dove Too tired from building its nest.

I cannot promise you the world, But I can give my love away.

Just promise me, my pretty bird, That you will stay and do the same.

If your gaze may veer or wander, I will capture your love again.

Look beyond my brightest flower Into roots that will never bend.

And when the cold seizes my leaves, Or my flowers start to descend, I will know that when you flee You will return until the end.

Then my last yellow leaf shall fall And I shall wait, even when the clouds cry, For my pretty little bird's call, And hope this wasn’t a goodbye.

People are rarely surprised when I mention that I like orgo, never shocked when I say I like Brussels sprouts or running in wet, freezing weather. My declaration that Barnett Newman’s paintings move me deeply evokes at most a sympathetic grunt. The fact that I’ve watched every Audrey Hepburn film fazes few.

But when I mention that I’m both a law-abiding citizen and a devoted listener of rap, jaws drop as if I’d just named my newborn child after a primary color in true Illuminati fashion. I say, “Yes, Eminem’s a very talented technical rapper, but his flow and delivery borrow from Kool G.,” only to get wild stares, as if I’d just recited colorful lyrics from The Marshall Mathers LP. The statement “Lupe’s new mixtape, it’s sick – he rhymes over John Coltrane and dubstep” earns quizzically raised eyebrows. “I like some of Odd Future’s stuff,” and you’d think I had just asserted that Earl was better than Illmatic. By the way, Earl was better than Illmatic.

Our prevailing attitudes toward rap are in a sense understandable: those who don’t listen to hip-hop base their opinions upon necessarily limited exposure, much as so many of us assume, criminally, that Mozart is “boring” or that classical music is “relaxing.” You’ve just never heard Prokofiev. Or Mahler. Or the gripping contrapuntal intricacies of J.S. Bach.

So even if we’ve never heard a single single, we assume that rap is basically about “packin’ gats and stuff.”

It’s simply untrue.

Rap is above all a cultural phenomenon: more than any other creative form, its relentless beats and often heavy content capture not merely urban life or gang warfare but also universal struggles, using the former as a channel to express the latter. 2pac’s “Changes” or “Dear Mama” should convince anyone of this.

It’s poetry. The “dopest” rappers possess incredible punning abilities, and double, even triple entendres aren’t uncommon, especially in older Em and H.O.V.A. Some spray words like machine-gun fire, while others pause or elongate syllables like hot taffy. Some rhyme five syllables at a time, while others’ slant rhymes make the listener hear the English language in a totally new way.

It’s history, both accepted and alternative. With impeccable rhythm, Lupe narrates:

Cecil Rhodes sold war and genocide / to the countryside just to get his shine on.

I fear what De Beers and his peers used to do, / before the world really knew, just to get their “mine” on.

Rarely does such a pithy condemnation of unrestrained greed and imperialism also rhyme.

It’s politics, the kind that you can’t get from Fox News or CNN, because it’s unfiltered and raw. There are no agendas here: rappers are just documenting life as it really is. They “penetrate pop culture, bring ’em a lot closer to the block.” Or the opposite: in Lupe’s classic “Hurt Me Soul,” he spouts a litany of our society’s most urgent issues:

Oil for food, water, and terrorist organization harborin’ sand camouflage army men CCF sponsorin’, world conquerin’, telephone monitorin’ […]

String theory ponderin’, bulimic vomitin’, Catholic priest fondlin’, pre-emptive bombin’ and Osama and no bombin’ them / They breakin’ in my car again, deforestation and overloggin’ and […]

All the world’s ills, sittin’ on chrome 24-inch wheels…

Rap zooms out, giving us a macroscopic perspective that is at once fresh and immediate.

A lot of rap is, admittedly, terrible – meaningless, bigoted, or just plain distasteful. To dismiss or even categorize the genre as a whole, however, makes about as much sense as naming John Denver and Taylor Swift in the same sentence just because they’re both “country.” Yes, Minaj fell off after she signed with “Young Money”; yes, Tha Carter III was Wayne’s last respectable album; and yes, Aubrey “Drake” Graham should have stuck with Degrassi. None of this changes the fact that Rakim is still the illest and killin’ it.

If we approach rap, however, as a valid art form, albeit one with whose cultural origins we may be profoundly unfamiliar and even initially uncomfortable, we begin to expand our horizons of tolerance and, in the process, learn more about ourselves.

Or, as Lupe would say:

In the mix with my realities and feelings Living conditions, religion, ignorant wisdom and artistic vision I began to jot, tap the world and listen.

Out from under my bicycle tire came a shriek, or more like a squeak—of agony. I pushed hard on the brake handles; this time it was my tires shrieking, rubber burning to nothing, becoming part of the cement.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Why did you stop?

It was a toad, a little toad I had run over. It lay motionless except for its stomach moving in and out, in and out. One eye was closed and the socket hollow, sunken. The tongue hung out the side of its mouth, limp.

No, no, no, no, no. Please, no.

Suddenly the casket was in front of me and every cheek in the sanctuary glistened with tears, because there, before us, lay a child. Dead. And everyone kept saying, “In the wrong place at the wrong time.” It was a matter of milliseconds. And I kept hearing, “40 miles per hour over the speed limit” and “dragged 160 feet.” I couldn’t escape the images implanted in my mind, and the words haunted me, following me everywhere. My mother calling, saying, “Are you sitting down?” And how I knew, right then and there, I knew.

Here lay a little toad, and I knew he was going to die. I picked him up and moved him to the side of the path. By now his breath had grown laborious, and his tiny feet curled under him.

“I’m sorry, I-I’m so sorry…” I got back on my bike and pedaled hard. I let the wind dry out my eyes and drown out all the noise—everything. Meanwhile, the wind picked up leaves, and floating down, they took residence on top of the toad, covering him. Dead.

In the wrong place at the wrong time.

I pedaled on.

Loiters in your mouth, but only for a bit: will it ever cease?

Mindless, empty but then again, who doesn’t love to whistle, it seems so. Just so, under yet another as if I were the last one standing— colors blended into dark (Love is war. yes, it is. But he disagreed with the other, and so, if I had noticed) and that was all there was.