Time to Test

Time to Test
Kane A. San Miguel WBEZ/file
Time to Test
Kane A. San Miguel WBEZ/file

Time to Test

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Poet Kane A. San Miguel, 17, is a senior at Emerson V.P.A. in Geary, IN and competed in Louder Than a Bomb 2011 as a member of team Shh!… Listen representing his high school.

In Time to Test, Kane explores a number of subjects including television & violence in the form of a three-question poetic ‘test’; the point, he says, is to get the audience to listen to the wordplay while also pondering the questions incorporated into the piece.

Though everyone knows the points are not the point – the point is the poetry – congratulations to Kane, who was selected as an Indy Finalist in the 2011 competition which celebrated over 600 young writers.

Time to Test by Kane A. San Miguel

You’ve got an hour
Your Test begins… now
Now cower!
Focus your mind power, or it’s ours
*Question 1: People run for the __(blank)__
Like the bee’s do for their hon-
E…*
Is not the answer
But I still gotta spit it like the seeds of the sun-flower
Up
‘Cause I shower music; my mind is a nuisance
But it makes me #1; you are losing
Because you are #2 like the pencil that you’re using
I am oozing such genius with no effort; I am cruising
Wedded the game but now I am domestically abusing it…
Flow is so confusing that
Sherlock Holmes is finding it difficult to chew or even finds some clues in it
He needs a Scooby-Doo to help him get through
So sick, he knows my flow is cold - it’s got a runny nose
But then it went and “flu”…
True - opposite of television
They call it “T-V” ‘cause they don’t care about “U”

Now let’s go to the second question
Remember! No second guessing!
Look it over before you check it out of the weapon section
Bullets and guns, people load clips and pull it for fun
Cool at the tongue, quick with the wit, Slicker than Rick - I’ve got that gift
Five-star reviews everywhere like on datpiff(.com)
This hit may be tailor made
But I’m not that swift - get it? Taylor Swift?
Shift, Escape, take it Back-a-Space
I was ‘keying’ on your weapons so before you attack the place
And agitate and aggravate those innocents
Make sure you use your inner sense - the common one!
Fulfilling this will never bring you magnificence!
But you are so intent on this moment
So to “capitalize” on it keep your “Caps Locked” homie…
I know it
Just know that when you get to robbin’,
Terror like Bin Laden
Look at the children’s faces so that you know what you’ve accomplished
No accomplice, so your conscious, hung with monstrous guilt
Is plunging, now you’re suffering…
Question 2 is can you live by feeling nothing..?

Two questions down, your last question is do we -
Know the System to the Decimal like Dewey?
That’s phooey
I just spew these Tunes - no Looney
I always play my CARDS
Even if they don’t SUIT me
I am the new KING of ACES
Searching for my QUEEN
Climbing mountains, JACK’S got my back
And I just keep rhyming
But these rare flows are no-brainers - so I do not mind them
Even when the JOKERS CLUB my HEART
When I would SPADE for DIAMONDS
Yeah, we lift our glass
Tip it to the lips ‘til it drips down like the sands in an hour glass
And now I ask for you
To pass your papers to me
No donkey’s here so please just get your a** up out my class!
I keep my old dreams but I bring on new ones
I’d “Trek” a “Voyage” to the “Stars” just to cling on/”Klingon” to them
I’d never kiss them goodbye…
Although, they would be missed
This class is done, now you’re finished
Class is dismissed.

*For some clarification the (blank) in the first part actually references “money”, meaning “People run for the money like the bees do for their honey.”