Malcolm was fed 16 bullets because of his. A slug kissed
the jaw of King Jr. and silenced him forever. Gandhi shriveled
like snakeskin. Joan of Arc became Joan of Ash—
So you can understand why Melle Mel was jittery scribbling it
all down, on a napkin, at Lucky’s Noodle Shop in Harlem.
Sweat pearled into his green tea. He thought of Jesus
hanging from that dull wood. Heard about the poet Lorca
under an olive tree, shot in the back. Everyone has felt this way though,
he thought. Never could he have imagined what would happen
when he pressed his thumbprint into vinyl. Hip-Hop was still
a tadpole. The DJ had just learned to scratch a record and make sounds
no ear had ever conjugated. How was he to know Tupac & Biggie
would follow his lead and get plugged with lead? So he wrote it down,
in big curling letters, emphatic: don’t push me. 

Michael Cirelli's first full-length collection of poems, Lobster with Ol' Dirty Bastard, will be published in the Spring of 2008 by Hanging Loose Press. After living in Oakland for many years, he came to NYC to further his "writing career." Aside from completing an MFA at the New School, he works with thousands of NYC teens every year as Executive Director of the award-winning not-for-profit organization Urban Word NYC.

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Keywords : Hip Hop, Harlem, Manhattan

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