The First Tools

Headphone to ear, a Radio Shack four-track.
Two borrowed turntables & a duct-taped
microphone: all of this ad-lib circuitry just
waiting for the break beat to open like clouds
over an undiscovered planet. Neither of us
rapped with bass in the voice yet, so DJ Glove
put Richard Pryor’s bicentennial questions over
a Mantronix beat to fill in: We offer this prayer.
& the prayer is: How long will this bullshit
go on? How long?…That is the eternal question!
Man has always asked, How long? Meanwhile,
the crowd that should have been head nodding
shepherds-hooked us off stage in angry brains.