From A to Z
Poem by Joseph Chambers
Art by Alex Vargas

I dotted every I
and crossed every T
Now who wants to be
down with this lyrical masterpiece?
Now who wants to be
down with the M-I-C

Why you cut school?
Cause you ain't feel too good
Naw I cut school
cause my cuts ain't heal too good
Through all the physical abuse
My mind escaped
through the gift of wordplay
I memorized encyclopedias and dictionaries
I wrote anthems from antonyms
Harmonies from homonyms
Created cinema from synonyms
Was livid to eliminate
that illustrious life you're livin' in
Wrote rhetoricals in rhythms
Made rhymes out of religion
Use a prefix as a crucifix
Or suffocate you with a suffix
Wrote lectures so infectious
They're known to infect the listeners
Who dissin' us?
Yo punks just you wait ö I punctuate
My karma's the comma
That put you inside of a coma
Hyphen, semi-colon, dot, dot
Leave you semi-swollen
Question: You pregnant?
Oh you're not? I love you, Period.
To sum it up, language is my essence
Fucked up in all my adolescence
Till my Mom's was out of lessons
Laws, I store convenient
Still I rob a convenience store
Love Mom, Fuck Mom
Shit, I don't love me no more
Mentally it didn't register, bi---
Empty the register, bi---
You just a cashier, bi---
Give the cash, here
Or I'll shoot you in your cabbage
Hijack a getaway cab, bitch
Words ain't makin' me no loot
Don't change now Dow Jones average
Regardless, we're Godless
They stole my innocence
In a sense, the judge sentenced me
To 3 lifetimes sentences
To put my life in times and sentences
Art my dark arch nemesis
They want me off the premises
That's what the premise is
Locked on a tier
where you can't shed a tear at
I studied more Shakespeare
Than any African can shake a spear at
And the whole world fears that
And it hurts
I got caught for killing time
But then I got with words...