Street Beat

[Jimmy Stark]

Feel the heat of the street beat.
Hear the feet of the meek squeak.
Perennially pounding pavement,
Perpetually pushing pestilence.
Hearing caged birds sing
where no phones ring.
Seeing barred windows.
Where the wind blows it goes
where it flows through the boroughs
and borrows our sorrows.
Where the devil drives a Chrysler,
and Christ is a heist.
Where brownstones mean milestones,
and brown skin means firearms.
Where the hydrants hydrate the irate
and the fate of the date illuminates hate.
Where bumpy face is not a feature but a creature
that will defeat you,
eat you,
and unseat you.

The ghetto is a meadow.
Where the slow blow to let go.
Where the hoes throw dro and yayo.
Where the foes load four fours in their drawers.
Where the pain of the slain is in vain.
Where they feign insane and main vein for reign.
Where the trees do not grow and the leaves do not fall.
Where Schweppervescence is the essence.
The feet of the meek squeak because they cannot speak.
It is far too bleak.

The ghetto meadow is shadowed by a colossus
with swatches
no one watches.
So let's do the right thing
bring peace
be a king.
So that the birds can sing outside of cages.
So that the phones can ring throughout the ages.
So that the trees will grow
and the flowers flow.
Make the ghetto a true meadow.
Where you won't have to pack heat
and where trumpets will proclaim
the true street beat.

[Brownlie]

Well I do like rap music, but you don't have a beat man!
A diatribe against Maia Angelou would be welcomed on this site or any criticism of her at least.

Feel the heat of the street beat. -- Way too abstract.
Hear the feet of the meek squeak.
Perennially pounding pavement,
Perpetually pushing pestilence.
Hearing caged birds sing
where no phones ring.
Seeing barred windows.
Where the wind blows it goes
where it flows through the boroughs
and borrows our sorrows.
Where the devil drives a Chrysler,
and Christ is a heist.
Where brownstones mean milestones,
and brown skin means firearms.
Where the hydrants hydrate the irate
and the fate of the date illuminates hate.
Where bumpy face is not a feature but a creature
that will defeat you,
eat you,
and unseat you.

The ghetto is a meadow.
Where the slow blow to let go.
Where the hoes throw dro and yayo.
Where the foes load four fours in their drawers.
Where the pain of the slain is in vain. -- these are some bad abstractions.
Where they feign insane and main vein for reign. --The syntax is awful I always cringe when rappers try to be poetical.
Where the trees do not grow and the leaves do not fall.
Where Schweppervescence is the essence. -- Even though proper nouns are linked to corporate sponsors in rap they still work very well in the genre.
The feet of the meek squeak because they cannot speak.
It is far too bleak.

The ghetto meadow is shadowed by a colossus
with swatches
no one watches.
So let's do the right thing
bring peace
be a king.
So that the birds can sing outside of cages.
So that the phones can ring throughout the ages.
So that the trees will grow
and the flowers flow.
Make the ghetto a true meadow.
Where you won't have to pack heat
and where trumpets will proclaim
the true street beat.

I like the song "I Got Five on It" even though the message is poison and the video is the Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids. However, behind all of that there are some concrete details that make the music authentic. I am then free to look at the information and go Damn this speaker has a shitty life! So I would keep to the concrete details and if you want to rhyme in poetry I would explore the practice threads on the site. Now I've never written rap so I don't know what sounds good you could know more about than me. Thanks for posting.

[ellajam]

Hi, Jimmy, welcome. There's a lot to like here, but some glaring problems also. I found it an interesting read until I hit the last stanza, which struck me as preachy and just a string of cliches. Here are some notes.

Feel the heat of the street beat.
Hear the feet of the meek squeak. Effective line.
Perennially pounding pavement,
Perpetually pushing pestilence. A bit much for me, but your poem.
Hearing caged birds sing
where no phones ring.
Seeing barred windows.
Where the wind blows it goes
where it flows through the boroughs
and borrows our sorrows. Why would the wind borrow sorrows?
Where the devil drives a Chrysler,
and Christ is a heist. Again, effective line.
Where brownstones mean milestones, I don't get why brownstones are milestones.
and brown skin means firearms.
Where the hydrants hydrate the irate
and the fate of the date illuminates hate. What date?
Where bumpy face is not a feature but a creature
that will defeat you,
eat you,
and unseat you.

The ghetto is a meadow.
Where the slow blow to let go.
Where the hoes throw dro and yayo.
Where the foes load four fours in their drawers.
Where the pain of the slain is in vain.
Where they feign insane and main vein for reign.
Where the trees do not grow and the leaves do not fall.
Where Schweppervescence is the essence.
The feet of the meek squeak because they cannot speak.
It is far too bleak. I like all the above but would cut this line, it states the obvious.

The ghetto meadow is shadowed by a colossus
with swatches
no one watches.
So let's do the right thing
bring peace
be a king.
So that the birds can sing outside of cages.
So that the phones can ring throughout the ages.
So that the trees will grow
and the flowers flow.
Make the ghetto a true meadow.
Where you won't have to pack heat
and where trumpets will proclaim
the true street beat.
If you want to end on the possibility of change, please dig in here and do it in some new and interesting way.

Thanks for the read, I hope you continue to work on this.

[Erthona]

This seems very rhyme driven to the detriment of the poem. There is a lot of repetition. I was not that impressed with I Know "Why The Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, alluding to it twice and attempting to build a "ghetto equals meadow" metaphor causes the poem to crash under its own weight. Although not particularly mainstream there are a number of fairly trite expressions such as

"pounding pavement"
"pushing pestilence"

Despite that, I find the first stanza works fairly well rhythmically and sonically, and seems very different compared to the two stanzas that follow it. It seems as though the writers inspiration him through the first stanza, but then the next two stanzas lack that inspiration. It is though the poem is the first stanza, and then commentary follows with the next two.

Although there is good in this, a primary difference between poetry and rap, is rap is driven by the rhyme, and the words around the rhyme do not have to make a lot of sense, only pseudo-sense. In poetry the words can't be senseless or repetitive simply for the sake of the rhyme. It is a similar difference between poetry and song lyrics.

Anyway, welcome to the site,

Best,


Dale

[zmeansy]

Great opening. Some of the lines are a bit vague for my understanding like: Hearing caged birds sing
where no phones ring.

but who am I to say anything my poems are the most confusing things that exist.

[Reesedog914]

I liked.

This is not critique. What did you like? Why? Please try harder/ mod