I am so excited that Khaleefa Hamdan, a Fielding graduate, rapper and Slam Poet, will be visiting our school to speak to all Intermediate students on Friday, November 19th.
UPDATE: Even MORE special, he will be visiting R8A on Wednesday, October 13th during period 3.
Start thinking about questions you might want to ask Khaleefa about his proces or his poems. For a bonus, write some questions in the comment section here.
Two of his poems are posted below. They're really fun to read out loud, just wait until you hear him perform them!
Small and Sleek
Khaleefa Hamdan
So I decided to take a walk right, you know just minding my biz
And fiending a kiss from her thievenous lips, day dreaming of hips
And scheming of scripts of stealing a glimpse of seeing her strip
She’ll see me and trip, she’ll scream and she’ll diss and I’ll meet with her fist
When suddenly I heard a tiny voice say “Please, DON’T STEP ON ME!
Cuz you see your leathery weaponry will be the death of me!”
So I looked down and saw an ant so I asked “You say something?”
And he said “I didn’t say something you dumb thing, you think you run things?
I said one thing and that’s don’t step on me,
Christ, you must be blind AND deaf”
I said “Yo, you’ll die if I step” he said “Try I’ll bet I’ll make you cry and jet”
Now this ain’t what I was taught in science class and as the silence passed
I felt as brave as a lion’s ass but time was dyin fast
So I asked “How does it feel to live a meaningless existence?”
He said, “Trying to trick, diss prince?
Cuz in this instance there ain’t a big difference”
I told him “Well there ain’t no colony callin’ me constantly
Haulin’ meat or small and sleek y’all indeed crawl in speed all in streets
I’m in awe you geek, I’m tall and can speak and that’s the difference you bottom freak”
He said “Who you calling freak and stop stalling speech, you live for economies
Like our colony, you humans work and strive and keep hurt alive
And spend your whole lives doing back breaking labour, just so it’ll thrive"
I laughed in his face cuz, well, you know me the low key pro teen, I’m so mean!
He’s a joke like governments who go green “Homie we don’t follow no queen”
He told me “Pull out a twenty, right now! Come on, yeah the dollar bill!
Watch me ruin your reality and all your skill will fall more, still
Better haul your will cuz tell me what you see, Queen Elizabeth
See us ants we live and bet and give regrets still it’s a gift we met”
This ant spoke the truth, so like any dignified man with socks on
First I gawked on then realized I got brawn so I stomped him down, then walked on
Content with my ignorance as the clouds, sun, and plants followed me
We are the human race, the over glorified ant colony
Don’t Look
Khaleefa Hamdan
Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look two percent of the world's population
Owns half the wealth & it's spent becoming nuclear rocket nations
God waited on us to work it out but got impatient, so he stopped his saving
It's like we locked with Satan, invading nations who fight back with rocks they slangin'
And fat cats think in power point & money so they invest in bullets & clips
And they pull it to clip the wings of the white dove, so dead bodies are fillin' the ditch
And mass graves like animals or better yet nuclear waste, no decency
Hell recently, we'll burn torches to look in Death's face to get a decent peek but
Don't look, don't look, don't look, they went to Afghanistan to pop some insurgents
Her pops was in service, got popped & it's hurtin', it's off to the surgeon
They're stopping their workin' to pop in his virgin, she's shocked & she's jerkin'
They swapin' & smerkin', she was a lone angel amongst the rotten & vermin
There was one of them, for every year that made up her age, ten war time crooks
And as they squeezed & forced themselves in she closed her eyes & thought "Don't look, don't look,
Don't look, don't look" is what he said to himself as he thought about what fame is
Payments made to the shameless tucked in the Caymans in laymen's that is famous
It left him dis-turbed how he's molding lives with words of kids who called him mis-ter
He'd write till his wrists hurt, looking at his inserts, it became sweet like a des-sert
So he grabbed his death maker, he used to keep the shells hidden in old books
He sat on his couch, closed his eyes put it in his mouth & thought "Don't look, don't look
Don't look, don't look" she was just your average daily teen using Maybelline
Trying to be a Cover Girl, she's made to dream of being a famous queen
So she's not happy with her body image, she no longer eats, starvin'
Like that's how every star been, star bent her stomach feels like two boxers sparrin'
In her mind, she's always ugly & she'll never realize just what her goal took
Anorexic, whenever she walks by the mirror she whispers "Don't look, don't look,
Don't look, don't look" he was a dull moth who spent late nights writing manuscripts
Thinking "Man, you sick!" tucked away in his room like a phantom's crypt
He was attracted to light made by this firefly, her face plagued his vision
See she's dating a pompous butterfly, so the moth would trace his incisions
Of every single heart break & past scar, he used to look up at the last star
He couldn't turn away like seeing the crashed cars; he was an ape with a glass heart
It baffled him how he came so far; he loved the bizarre words of James O'Barr
This love game is so hard, in order to cope, he made his lame old art in rain or stars
But the sound of their kiss is forever ingrained and burned in his memory
So he's up ripping all the pages out his notebook that were referencing
His truest love, it was never true, so now he sits lightless with his soul shook
Replaying the incident, remembering how the crow said "Don't look, don't look
Don't look, don't look" every night I speak to God through my pen's ink & notebook
Like Lord, this world is full of sin & murder but please, for our sake don't look
Don't look, don't look, don't look....
