Nature Metaphors in Urban Verse: Theory and Practice

Rap has a reputation for being “urban,” but in fact the natural world can inspire memorably filthy lyrics about sexual and pharmaceutical transactions too. Below is a “rap-style” composition adapted from a cell phone memo I wrote to myself while riding the bus some weeks back. You will find it almost intolerably disgusting, but at the same time you’ll be mildly impressed by the word play.

Unghh. Crane your necks to the sky!

Jay-Z and Beanie Seagull, yo.

I’ma wing this.

When I roll into town, I don’t give a fuck.

I cock my Glock, ready to rock, so y’all chickens better duck.

I pick up my chick, we kick back and smoke some weed.

I rub her boobies

like we in a Galapagos movie.

She be raven and crowin’ while she swallowin’ the seed

from my woodpecker. I got what she seekin’.

With her mouth ridin’ my nuthatch, not a word she be speakin’. No beakin‘.

She wanna sing but she ain’t nothin’ but a hummingbird

as I’m coming. Word.

She workin’ her American dipper, damn right I’ma keep her.

I’ma treat her bushtits real good so she’ll give me a brown creeper.

Now on to drugs. I got more heron

than a rookery, I watch it like a hawk, got my stare on.

Thievery? Believe me, I’m dodgin’ it.

Tern back; you cuckoo if you think you robin it.

I been a road runner since the nineties, hustlin’.

Swift, no grousin’, now my wallet be rustlin’.

Turn the loons into Bordens, that’s the cardinal rule.

If you don’t quail when I approach then I pity you, fool.

The west side is the nest side, bitches!

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