[The Other:]
State your name, race and gender.

[Nathan:]
Nathan D; male i guess; fire bender.

[The Other:]
Waiting for the data set to render.

[Nathan:]
Just another average moment in the passage of forever

[The Other:]
Age and occupation?

[Nathan:]
Dad loved Reagan:
Traded my storm trooper blaster for a working man’s ray-gun.
Working on a path to be the rap Donald Fagan.
Not to be woke, so much as awakened.

[The Other:]
Place of birth?

[Nathan:]
Washington. The trees and ferns my fortress.
Used to smoke some weed, now I breath the burning forests.
Sieves are not as porous as the gaps in my enforcements:
Made some raps without a chorus, it’s been hard to get endorsements.
Turns out it all ain’t Smash Bros and jet skis,
It’s dog eat dog — better recheck the recipe.
Keep it all at bay like Chesapeake, felt the chest beat —
While hanging like a chest piece they’ll take away your chest piece.

[The Other:]
Next please — affiliated party?

[Nathan:]
Smash the patriarchy. Daddy issues. Kinda artsy.

[The Other:]
Please present your pass for parking.

[Nathan:]
Wrong time, right place:
I came for the class war but all they had was race.
— Sing the blues till I’m blue in the face.
Proof in case: teaching school but a student of grace
I didn’t get to choose my eyes are blue like violets that bloom in a vase —
But I have inclusive taste.

[Refrain:]
And whom am I hoping to face,
When I’m holding up my poems making motion in place —
Will they hold me as another appropriates,
Or in open embrace, each holding our space?
And who are you? I don’t know —
But I want you at my show.

Right — hold up —
Light showed up,
Time unfolded —
Better get your grind and soul aligned.
Wrote a
Giant tome of
Rhyme to show the light inside your mind —
No duh.

Idion, idion, idion —
Y’all don’t even know what kinda thing we on.
Only God can stop me when I sing the song —
Y’all know how it be, we gotta be beyond.

[The Other:]
Early education?

[Nathan:]
Spirit assemblies:
Be kind to your friends, sportsmanlike to your enemies.
Play sports, make forts, go for the classics —
Don’t deconstruct concepts of Western advancement.
I made it happen, I studied Latin, I came to love the mask I fashioned —
Now to recall where my face starts and the mask ends.
Mass bends essence in a lattice of accidents,
Passions that flash from my atom’s chance actions.
— If that makes no damn sense, read my dissertation:
That’s why I wrote it: Oglesby, Nathan
Dufour: truth force: may my form hold my soul in:
I’m turning 33 — dude you’re so olden!
— Never heard of me before? yo, for fudge sake:
I’m not a late bloomer — y’all slow on the uptake.
Your boy wicked smart with the art though he’s dumb baked,
Gazing on the void like a hole in a bundt cake.
Too much my heart, it’s enveloping me,
So I figured I’d disclose it on some regular beats:
A product of my elements and that which I’ve lived in:
God’s infinite body, and capitalism.
— Shit, where’s my dongle? Doggone it, it’s gone, yo.
I still got my dong tho, it’s on like the gong show.
God let my songs grow as long as a swan’s throat:
I wanna draw audiences, all in one broad stroke.

[Refrain:]
And whom am I hoping to see,
When the ones that I’m composing for are open to me,
Knowing every touch I feel is never complete,
And every distance relatively is as close as can be?
And who are you, I don’t know —
But I want to see you glow.

Right — hold up —
Light showed up,
Time unfolded —
Better get your grind and soul aligned.
Wrote a
Giant tome of
Rhyme to show the light inside your mind —
No duh.

Idion, idion, idion —
Y’all don’t even know what kinda thing we on.
Only God can stop me when I sing the song —
Y’all know how it be, we gotta be beyond.