POEM | static

On March 3, 2003, I set out to write a poem with the hope it would be something I would like to perform a lot. I won a quite a few poetry slams with this one through 2004. It is an intense piece that I still love and I still perform it when I am feeling too quiet. It ended up becoming one of my favorite poems to perform as a group with Shane Koyczan and C.R. Avery as our band Tons of Fun University. It was the opening track on our first album, “The Them They’re Talking About.”

Listen to it here. It gets loud.

Read along below. It stays quiet.

“static”
by Mighty Mike McGee

Now, hear me out
I licked the acidic pages of poets who showed it through rhyme and verse
psychedelic thoughts immersed so I could rehearse these words in my head
Fuck MTV, I want my RC Weslowski

Hip-hop is a language of the street anyone who speaks it well is an artist of the world
because the world is covered in streets—we all live on streets
the street is where you go to find out what the world is up to
SO
I wanna be hip-hop

I want to be so in tune with the world that I am a language
that every line I write is almost an unimaginable concept
like becoming static
When you turn on the TV to a channel that isn’t there
you hit static

Most of us change the channel to find silly situations to escape with
but static is art; static is discovery
It started as energy and then someone wanted to hear it
so it became
sound
Then someone wanted to see it and television was born, to bring static
to the masses
Nobody understands it, some of us call it dead air, but it’s alive
like you and me
maybe even more

Everyday I discover just how alive I am
Every room I enter, there’s a living woman who doesn’t realize how
much she loves me yet
I will bet it’s only because we haven’t been introduced
I wanna be hers cuz she doesn’t
I’ve wanted to be hip-hop ever since I wasn’t

Ladies & gentlemen, I wanna be the scores of yours
I wanna be rock and roll, a rolling rock
I’m running out of time, so fuck the clock
Time paints us whatever color it sees fit
I wanna be black or white or brown or yellow
I wanna be consumed by shades of static

I wanna be on TV – in between channels 2 and 3
I want to be chromatic static
comfortable white noise for all the B-girls and B-boys
lulling them to dream, reaching to scream
I know I’m not what I seem
I look like shit, but I taste like cream

I want to be that of which only a few people watch when they should be asleep
I want to be the place where seeds are sown so others can reap

I am static; romantic electric camouflage
I’m the dead silence before applause
the healing qualities of wound wrapping gauze
a big, bag of presents from Santa Claus

I’m not the first poet or a Last Poet, but in between
I want to be nomadic
in static submissions
the rock and roll star at the end of all transmissions
People will watch me without knowing it
rocking you and rolling you without showing it

From time to time, at three in the morning
as you solve the world’s problems, I’ll be there
at the beginning and the end of your radio dial
If you wanna see me on TV, unplug your fucking antenna

I will be static, you will be hip-hop and breath
I will write to the beat of your feet & read it in your death
I want my hip-hop rhymes to be so good they just don’t rhyme anymore
But what’s in store for the whore that is me?
The one they call Mighty Mike McGee?
Fuck that, call me Johnny Appledog
Because the seeds I sow will grow to be trees of thought that walk to
you when you call them

You see, beyond hip-hop and the rigmarole of rock and roll
is just me who used to be a little boy who couldn’t but wanted to give
the world
a little more of what it never really had
offering happy when it felt a little sad
a little bit of static in a world gone mad
I am creating a destiny for the rest of me in a life I attest to be the best of me

Laugh cuz shit’s funny
cry cuz it fucking sucks
Say hello to the world before goodbye and gone
turn on the TV when you know nothing’s on
and think of me before you panic
cuz when I leave this world, I’m coming back as…TCHSSHHHHH