by TW. Crawford


(Rap music has been the underground voice
for youth to communicate the pain of
inner-city life, but please; while you knod to the rhymes;
examine the reason.) 


I've traveled the roads of hate
dampened with tears
found hope in prayers
and high hat snares
I gave "Hip Hop" my soul, and
found elevation in "Kool Jazz"
still the dollar signs control
the words that flow from a rappers staff.
The lyrics of gun play, lead many astray
bombarded with the smooth rhetoric of death,
but life is worth more than Benjamin's
and a neighborhood rep.
I speak for all true poets, writers, and visionaries
all my brothers Zamounde Allie, Memphis Vaughan Jr.,
Dennis Gaughan, and Afrika Ablaze;
Death should not be glamorized,
Death should not be romanticized,
Death should not be glorified.
Don't get me wrong, from experience
I can relate to the 
lost and hopeless, yet
briefly between tortures
I did find hope
and climbed the rope
 straight outta 
...SELF-DESTRUCTION

False prophets may tempt you
with words so slick,
rush your adrenaline
cause you to fantasize about
loading clips, 
and blasting enemies
without remorse, 
of course
they never speak of the day after the gun,
the disaster your life has quickly become
I don't want to see another 16 year old girls
life snuffed, because her boyfriend wanted his
boys to think he was tough.

I know you feel lost in all this shit
your legs feel tied to the streets, 
when you blink
there's images screaming you can't compete.
You will live!
You're my brother and
I pray we both keep on living,
but if you take a life there is no forgiving
Hear me tell you for the last time…

Death should not be glamorized,
Death should not be romanticized,
Death should not be glorified.

I know what hopelessness can do
emptiness mixed with weed and brew
meanwhile all mothers pray for you
I say to you
There's so much in this life for you to do
your time isn't through,
we all live through you
We are all extensions of one another.

Glorifying the sounds of shells 
hitting the concrete on a CD,
taking a life, extinguishing a light,
removing a soul, devouring a being,
destroying a person…God's gift to us all
is not what we poets, us true brothers
call poetry at all.