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The Poetry Of Malcolm London
Our guest Malcolm London might only be 20 years old, but he delivers a powerful poetic punch. Our Tuesday broadcast with the up-and-coming Chicago poet is worth a listen — it's a pretty fantastic conversation — but we also wanted to highlight some of London's original poems he read on our air. His works are excerpted below and included in text.
"High School Training Ground" (excerpt)
This is a training ground.
Just sought to sort out the “regulars” from the “honors,”
a reoccurring cycle built to recycle the trash of this system.
Trained at a young age to capitalize letters,
taught now that capitalism raises you,
but you have to step on someone else to get there.
This is a training ground,
where one group is taught to lead and the other is made to follow.
No wonder so many of my people spit bars because the truth is hard to swallow.
The need for degrees has left so many people frozen.
Homework is stressful.
But when you go home everyday and your home is work
you don’t want to pick up any assignments.
Reading textbooks is stressful.
But reading does not matter when you feel your story is already written,
Either dead or getting booked.
Taking tests is stressful.
But bubbling in a scantron does not stop bullets from bursting.
I hear education systems are failing,
but I believe they are succeeding at what they’re built to do,
to train you
to keep you on track
to track down an American Dream
that has failed so many of us all.
"Never Too Late"
There’s one thing the richest man can never purchase
Yesterday
It feels like
Yesterday I sat Indian-style around my grandfather’s armchair
Suspended above my head
Like a skyline
His belly beneath denim overalls
Wreaking of Old Spice and drinking Mississippi Cotton Gin
He would say
Before nodding off the the Wheel of Fortune
and waking up when someone turned the station
If you are early
You are on time
And if you are on time
You are late
But it is never too late for your time
The richest man can never purchase
Yesterday
Yesterday my grandma says she sees
Everything
On the block
She complains about friends
My cousin brings into the house
Off the street
Late at night to use her bathroom
She fuss always,
But always
Let folk use her bathroom
The richest man can never purchase
Yesterday
But could purchase
A new bathroom
Every morning
My granddad
A construction worker with massive forearms
Building up a city
Tearing down his pension
Unfurls his bones
At 6 am to read the bible in his pickup truck
I’ve never seen him go to church
But make a chapel out of the garage
He was never fully awake
Until my grandma handed him his thermos
Of coffee
The richest man can never purchase
Yesterday
But could purchase
A lot of coffee
I am a poor man living in the same neighborhood
My grandparents could never afford to leave
Every morning I read
Headlines
18 shot in a weekend
300 dead in a summer
50 schools shut down
Public funding cut
Trying to turn poems into eulogies
I find in the newspaper
Everyday I teach
Students their words into new front page stories
The richest man can never purchase
Yesterday
But could purchase
A news station
My grandmother is a woman carrying a house on her back
Shelter more people walking in without wiping their feet
On the mat
My grandfather a clock
Ran out of time
Before he was ever late
My gandmother’s favorite past time
Is dreaming of my grandpa’s past
Everyday I sit in a classroom
Pointing to the granddaddy armchair pointing in the sky
Telling my students
This city
Is yours
This is your house
With all its late-night
Back alley bathroom visits
Under all this construction
You are builders
Hold your dreams
At the lovers hand
Hand the next person you see
A thermos of coffee
Wake them up
Wake them up
No headline defines you
No amount of money can take your yesterday
So pickup truck
Where you left off
And keep going
No hands control your time except yours
It is never too late to wake up
For your wheel of fortune
No matter who controls the station
Wake up
Wake up
It is never too late
like my gandma taught me
Never too late
To love yourself enough
to purchase a new beginning
"Rome Wasn't Built In A Day (Love Sosa)"
Chicago has emerged
A duplication of Rome
A coliseum of world-wide spectators
Eyelashes stapled to eyebrows
Corneas wide
And waiting on the next Tribune article
On the latest body count
Millions of viewers
Anxious to hear the next ‘bang bang’
From the pistol mouths of black boys
Hear the applause for more audio
An audience of jackals
Cackling and cheering on
The symphony of corpse pile up
Here in Chicago
Every tongue is mimicking the art of the barrel
Barrels of blood
Burials of young
Through YouTube videos
Hip hop blogs
Radio play
Glory chasing boys
Singing songs of drug trade
And gun range
Of home
They are gladiators fighting on a battlefield
Where the landmines
Police who don’t care to protect
News anchors who don’t dare report
Schools who are only there to punish
But when the gladiator tells his own story
He blows up
Chief Keith
Got signed to Intrerscope with a movie deal
Shy Rack
Trended on twitter
As a joke
13-year-old rapper Little Mouse
Has about 36 thousand followers
Is on Wayne’s mix tape
Hear the dedication we have for this music
We love to dance to it
We love to listen to it
It’s so real
So hood
So real
So real
Black death
Bullets in Chicago
It is happening
It is urgent
More bodies being added to the list
At 300
And there is no ignoring this
And we don’t
We turn up
This music
Louder than a mother’s cry
For her funeral home children
We glorify
In Chicago
When black boys get killed
Chiefs alike
Laugh
Keith
And police
But who benefit from this?
No mother
No brother
No sister
No son
No daughter
No aunt
No uncle
No grandma
No granddad
No father
No cousin
No homie
No rapper
Likes to write eulogies
But who benefit from this
Arena of black boys
Revered and disposable
But spears for hearts
Armor skin
And crowds chanting for tombstones
South and West side don’t enjoy building new grave yards
While we dance on top
But who benefit from this?
Who took our love in hip hop
And turned it into love
In hip hop and lanler
We rachet
We hood
We laugh
Like we not wrapped them body bags
Rap about body bags
Gold chains
And decked out chariots
Our hoods
Cesspools of blood
And violence
Who who?
City planner
Who
Benefit from this?
These
Gladiators don’t sleep on skeletons just because they have a bone to pick
Who benefit from this?
Who profit from this coliseum of black boy gladiators
Celebrated for their carnage
Murdering for the world to watch
Why You Talk Like That?
Why you talk like that?
With fake bass in your voice
Like you got foundation
Why you talk like that?
Speak up like police lights on street posts
Up
Like that like
Surveillance
Can you see me?
The cabrini green growing in your esophagus
Talk like you
Waiting to be gentrified
Why you talk like that?
Like coffee?
Black but not strong like they like their coffee
Integrated
Obeying the cream
Talk like a playground
In your lungs
While you hyde park and breathe
In bravado
In belligerence
I see you native to these west side Americas
I hear the colonialism in your dialect
Where you grew up
Where you belonged
Loose squares is a mantra
Slurred words like liquor store was on the corner
Of your cheeks
See your tongue
Crisp and crossed
Like your mamma raise you
On crucifixion
Like she pray
You never come home in a coffin
Like she know
These predators pray
More often
Often you speak like you can make institutions disappear
Like magic
Like voodoo in your veins
Like you dream
Of new order
Or New Orleans
Talk like you immune to Katrina
This hurricane
Of injustice
Why your slang move like
Mississippi did migrated
Into your saliva
Dixie line dictions
Stirred in kitchens
In pots
Of collard greens
Turkey necks
And sweet potato pie
You sweet talk
Like you met at the intersection of Arsenio Hall and Fresh Prince
Transit authority
That transition to 26th and California
Is easy for you
You grew up
Spitting boss
Taste buds grew up
On police brutality
Dished out in cooke county
You spit like you thirsty
Like you been wading in the water
Of parasites and low income
Your mouth didn’t dry suppressing all that struggle
The thesaurus in your throat clogs like a word
But struggle
In other words
You talk like you never been north
Never been freed
Like you ignored
Like you need to be heard
Like your story has a history
You aren’t allowed to know
Like you got something to say
What do you think of poet Malcolm London's message and meaning? What do you read in his poems?
Let us know in the comments below, or on Facebook, Tumblr and @OnPointRadio.