Ebb and Flow

m.c.

I see you’ve opened your eyes
to see a white bitch playing white witch
playing your tune, so soon she tickles
your pickle and you wake up
to wonder bread and shake-n-bake
fake as press-on nails she wails
you bail, you playa, you gangsta, you hard
you fat fuck tub-o-lard, what makes you think
she want you? she haunt you, bitch,
she switches up your rhymes and times
3/4 to 6/8 she bait you and you bite
each night she rides you. imagine
all the people you drop with skills
and pornographic metrical thrills,
how they laugh
ha-ha-ha
how they laugh

I have yet to find a lyrical voice I can't imitate; even hip-hop (be it freestyle or written), when you consider that I am a fundamentally arhythmic human being in many ways, was a quick study. I wish I could say I was happy about this, but I've found recently that I've been imitating the voice of other writers even unconsciously: when I was inside Anne Carson's head, I sounded like Anne Carson (and my first dissertation chapter is an embarrassing testament to that fact); when listening to The Streets (props to Mike for recommending), I started mumbling to myself in that awkwardly syncopated flow; and now that I'm immersed in Heidegger's language games (which, as was pointed out to me at a recent manuscript workshop, were invented by Derrida), I can't help but play versus.