SCRIPT: SPECTRUM SLAM O9: A SPOKEN WORD PRODUCTION
created by Alyssa Vera Ramos, Brandon Daley, Kellyn Lewis, Corinne Bass,
Lakhiyia Hicks, Ebony Page, and Tye Huggins
COPYRIGHT 2009 by Alyssa Vera Ramos
Lights up on ensemble assembled on the stage in different crazy poet/ar-teest poses a la White Christmas's
"Choreography." They snap and "oooh" and "ssss" with BRANDON as he performs his poem. BRANDON also
has a bongo drum, which he uses to his advantage.
BRANDON:
Fuck poetry!
Poetry has done nothing for me but make my life a living hell.
Poetry is the reason I’m un-athletic,
Poetry got me picked last in gym class
Poetry wasted this six-foot-six body by rotting away my innards with emotions
It ruined my conversation skills
Rejected me for my sophomore year homecoming.
Chained me to virginity
Poetry injected me with a social retardation that causes me to have, like, opinions and shit.
Poetry killed my dignity.
Made me stand at the side of parties and dance by myself to Soulja Boy
Causes my swag to be in a constant off position, never ever to be turned on again.
Poetry got me to think being emotionally vulnerable was cool
Poetry caused an entire generation
To
Talk like this
And
Express themselves, man
Sometimes we hate love because we can’t understand what love is
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And sometimes love hates us because it can’t understand who we are
And sometimes I love to hate us because I can’t understand who I am.
Free the children, be a revolutionary, white rabbit
Man, fuck poetry!
Listen, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone this, but poetry used to touch me as a kid.
I would sit in my bedroom alone, and poetry would come over, and we’d be hanging out, and then poetry would say
something like “Do you ever feel like no one loves you?” and I would say “All of the time.” And poetry would say,
“I love you.” And I would say, “I know.”
And that’s when poetry touched me.
Of course, this whole battle between poetry and me was merely internal, so I guess it wasn’t poetry touching me, but
me touching myself.
Still though…
Once something moves you, you can’t be moved back
And lately, when poetry touches me,
Or, I guess, when I touch myself,
I’ve been thinking of how to pass on that sensation
Of emotional affection or emotional affliction
To an audience like you.
Yeah, that’s right
When I touch myself, I think about you…
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Especially you.
Because poetry ruined my life
And I don’t want to be the only one.
Poetry made me write instead of fight
Read instead of breed
Hate instead of mate
Fornicate and copulate
Castrate my masculinity
Rid women from my vicinity
And invoke in me
A slew of suicidal tendencies
Perform a hysterectomy
On my brain for these emotions
Because ecstasy will technically
Be rid from my devotion
Invokes in this body
A sense of awkwardness
Made this tall suave hottie
Have to fuck his fist
But when I’m on stage purging
I can’t stop with this
Open up the curtains
Open up the gibberish
Because even though I’m hurting
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I couldn’t give a shit
I live with it
I die for it
I’m intricate like scientists
I’m deaf for this,
I’m blind for this
I’ve wasted so much time on this
I’m saying shit and rhyming it
So you all can comply to it
I’m fluid, so I can flow it
I’m a mother-fucking poet
So are all of you, you just don’t even know it
I had no idea either, till I sat down and wrote it
Let’s face it,
Poetry ruined my life,
And I don't want to be the only one.
The ENSEMBLE gets up, comes to front of stage, introduces themselves quickly to the audience "I'm..." (standard).
ENSEMBLE stands still, stares at audience.
KELLYN: What, you want something from us?
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LAKHIYIA: A word from our sponsors!
EBONY: Dare to be the same. Do drugs!
CORINNE: Have sex without a condom, it's totally cool - don't worry!
BRANDON: Shit piss cunt cocksucker motherfucker!
KELLYN: On with the show!
LAKHIYIA: We made art. We want to piece it together with you.
BLACKFACE RESPONSE - RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR CONVICTIONS, by Corinne
(during this piece, which the whole ENSEMBLE performs, they start out standing in a line, then, as the poem goes
on, are released to move about the space.)
CORINNE: I don’t want to tell you how to live.
BRANDON: I don’t want to tell you how to think.
KELLYN: I just want to show you what I’ve seen.
EBONY: I just want to share what I’ve heard.
LAKHIYIA: I want these things to carry some weight.
C: I want the world to learn from itself
B: Everything happens for a reason
K: And nothing happens without consequence.
E: The earth shifts when we walk.
L: Let’s be conscious of the shapes we leave behind.
C: There are those who tread lightly,
B: trying hard to live without a trace,
K: to move without shifting ground or disturbing still waters.
E: And there are those who tromp carelessly,
L: thrashing their way through the world,
C: snapping branches, stirring up trouble, leaving a wake of chaos,
B: but what of us?
K: Must we choose one or the other?
E: Must we either live without footprint or destroy the entire path?
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L: Why not tread with careful intention?
C: Why not carve a path, blaze a trail, that goes where we want it to go?
B: One that others can follow, but that still leaves other options?
K: I don’t want to tell you want to do.
E: I don’t want to tell you what to think.
L: I just want to take you where I’ve been.
C: I just want to show you what I’ve seen.
BRANDON: (yells) For whom are we responsible?!
(The ENSEMBLE stops. They immediately start searching the audience, looking for something. CORINNE
eventually stops center stage.)
CORINNE: Can somebody please tell me where the answers are?
(ENSEMBLE looks at audience expectantly. Audience responses are totally welcome, roll with it. Cast heads back
to the stage/stools as EBONY picks a piece of paper off the back wall and takes center stage. Though this is not
noted before each poetry piece in this script, know that before each poem, the performer will pick the paper of the
wall, and after each poem, s/he does something different with it: folds it, crumples it, eats it, etc.)
Media transition
UNTITLED - Ebony
EBONY:
[Self/sex/grab a few hands audition piece.]
Media transition
RESPONSIBILITY - Corinne
CORINNE :
Fix this
Fix it.
Fix things.
Fix relationships.
Fix me.
Don’t do this
Don’t let it get to you.
Don’t let it drag you down.
Don’t fall in.
Don’t fall back.
Don’t get sick.
Don’t lose control.
Don’t lose your head.
Don’t lose your heart.
Don’t lose your keys.
Don’t lose your mind.
Don’t lose the drive.
Don’t lose the past.
Don’t lose your way.
Don’t lose touch.
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Don’t let it in.
Don’t let it out.
Don’t let it go.
Do this
Do your homework.
Do your laundry.
Do the dishes.
Call your mother.
Go to the grocery store.
See that show.
Go to the gym.
Make your bed.
Eat better.
Get some sleep.
Keep this
Keep going.
Keep thinking.
Keep growing.
Keep blinking.
Keep things in perspective.
Keep your feet on the ground.
UNTITLED - Tye
(Kellyn cuts the poem paper and then rolls a joint at the end)
KELLYN:
I am the decisions I make
I am the thoughts I create
But all you can see are my actions
Splitting your head open with dissatisfaction.
As the only one aware, do I have an obligation
to inform the dying masses of the truth of their creation?
(In this next poem, the ENSEMBLE speaks the "Order in the Court" lines. A gavel sounds on words as well.)
FORGO FREEDOM? - Lakhiyia
LAKHIYIA:
Gavel strikes again
“Order in the court”
“Order in the court”
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Simultaneous push pull
Every action coexisting with an equal counteraction
Gaining the courage to do me
You entice with the comfort of conformity
But that’s not for me…
“Order in the court”
“Order in the court”
Bobbing in and out of idiosyncrasy
Like an iceberg in crippling cold tides
99.9 percent of my mass suppressed below the surface
Beneath my personhood
Suffocating under what I’m allowed to divulge
The truth of me
The life of me
The real me… bobs up
And the undertow of your expectation sucks me back down
“Order in the court”
“Order in the court”
Juxtaposing the uncertainty of ambition to the belittlement of your accusation
I recoil and…
My dream (or rightful amenity) is minimized to mere hallucination
So… Into your notions I conflate
Losing myself in the process of your way
… Mind’s
always
on
trial…
“Order in the court”
“Order in the court”
Ha! A mindless drone is your plan for me?
To lack Purpose
Appetite
Zeal
Creativity?
Striving to be more than what is…
Is ridiculous
No. I get it.
Like Dr. Evil you want a mini me… Mini you
A Robin to your Batman
A flunky to your Letterman
A dependent sidekick
Anything to keep another from being the main event
With pinky to the down turned corner of my mouth, I to your low standard stoop.
And refrain from questioning the status quo,
Or “Evidence” of what we think we know,
A seed of infertility you sow,
Oxymoronic, I know
Yet on this tide I flow… Comatose
And up grows a zero,
Don’t complain, groan and moan when this cipher sits lifeless on your couch
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Taking up space
Sucking up air and putting nothing out
You wanted this drone, remember?
“Order in the Court”
“Order in the Court”
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Can’t be a gift of the present, but a taunt of the past
A necessity for our Trendsetters
Inventors
Forefathers
Our “Yester- Dads”
Seems we aren’t entitled to creative thought if it means ideas from out the box
Seems we stand on the shoulders of giants, but aren’t meant to shoulder the weight of future brilliance
Of course, that’s considered defiance (More sarcastic)
So I bob
In and out of consciousness
In and out of acceptance
“Order in the Court”
“Order in the Court”
(Overlapping) But I choose defiance
For YOU will never behold the key to the fetters of traditional mediocrity until my life verifies the accessibility of.
The. seemingly im.pos.sible
CORINNE: [lamp image piece]
BRANDON (Sets up music stand onstage, puts paper on it. Says the next lines very calmly, presentationally,
directly to the audience with a smile on his face):
Ahem.
To be responsible is to constrain, is to asphyxiate a human being by wrapping the thumbs of normalcy around their
trachea and squeezing until averageness seeps from every orifice of their pretty little head.
(Projector displays: "ACCOUNTABILITY." Someone may also read it aloud, TBA. ENSEMBLE gets up, enacts
pre-selected half baked ideas.
1) You’re a fucking douche bag but I can’t say that to your face.”
2) It depends on your definition of cheating
3) “It’s not you, it’s me…not liking who you are.”
4) “I just keep letting you hurt me because I value your happiness more that my own”
UNTITLED - Kellyn To be performed with a rhythm circle, made by the ENSEMBLE.
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KELLYN:
In the wake of death the fate of my last breath
my life is light, placed in bright flashes of my mental and physical flesh
forgetting the mundane and the rest, remembering the pain,
the images you see at the end is the grade, life's the test
I saw simplicity.. stacked with basic emotion, as the knife,
touched my chest, heart pumpin blood out of breast,
no future left.
It is there where we brush upon Him, heaven
ten fingers, tremblin, blade being number eleven,
an extension of my physical form,
at odds with my soul like the clashing of two swords.
and there where my being was in conflict
my mind astonished. It, the connector of two states
it, mind had the duty to mediate, separate?
one part, my spirit, from the other, my flesh, it's the definition of livin.
but they're at odds. Mind havin duty to both entities
it was overdrivin, livid. It had a duty to satisfy
my body but my soul was fightin. Highlightin an
everyday struggle to place into balance all three parts.
a responsibility to my heart
For the transition before pawn, it would be nice to have the guy and girl who will be playing chess in Pawn to sit
next to each other (entire cast sit infront of audience watching the reel)... They sit lovey dovey, then we start to see
him winking at others and holding hands with another behind her back. Later she realizes it... even after he joins
another woman and walks with her under his arm... (*We should def keep the tableaux of two playing chess as she is
reciting. What about a picture of a headless Greek statue projected while she is reciting or would that take away or
be too much?)
(Transition: Taped interviews.) - John Aldous
(EBONY and KELLYN come up onstage, being lovey - dovey. Improv lines. They sit lovey dovey, then we start to
see him winking at others and holding hands with CORINNE behind her back. Later she realizes it... SHIFT to
tableaux of chess, KELLYN sitting and playing as he holds CORINNE's hand behind him, at some point.)
PAWN - Ebony
EBONY:
Undoubtedly a daily struggle to balance my personal pride and dignity with the fact that my role is the best for now
nothing more nothing less.
Yet to the outside world I feel as though I am a pawn being played like that of chess, unable to conjure a hypothesis
of my fate, I soon realize that a pawn is not getting paid to think.
There are 7 more just like me leading ever so feudally with unprecedented loyalty but we are still the weakest in this
infantry.
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