Shout Out

This is a shout out to the only rap show
this side of the Susquehanna, a shout out
to P-Man for mixing Nas with Wu-Tang,
the new one by the Gravediggaz
with Tupac, ‘Lil. Kim, & Biggie Smalls.
So props to the records, stacked like mica,
the CD’s diesel and sedimentary on tables,
speakers, floors; props to the haywire
of input, output, knobs that slide,
dial, click; props to the flyest,
bombest, off the hookest sampling
of ghetto life in this cowpatty on fieldstone
of a town; mad props
to the requests pouring in,
props to the white bread farm kids,
the Army War College kids, to all
the relocated sons and daughters who
white, black, pink, green wish they were blacker,
who dress up in Timbs, Tommys, DLO, Fubu —
citified fatigues — all the blow
blowhards who are afraid & therefore
not afraid to puff a blunt & get hype,
who aren’t urban but have urban hormones,
have 14-year-old beeper-wearing, AK-toting,
crack-selling pipsqueeks for hormones
marketing the latest in down-n-out attitude, the newest
in pseudo-revolutionary, consumer-as-gangster fashion
through the shopping malls
& Yo MTV Raps of their veins;
peace out, kid, for real.

Thorpe Moeckel
Shout Out is from Odd Botany, (Silverfish Review Press 2002).