Incendiary Lit

Many out there have never heard of a rhaptzung poem, which is a loose formal poem with many variations. Here’s the official definition:

Rhaptzung– An urban-influenced poetry form that involves heavy concentration on musicality, generally in multi-syllabic rhyming (often slant) couplets with internal rhyme and assonance. The form originated in the late ’90s among hip hop listening poets frustrated with the sparseness and lack of depth in the music they loved. They took the sonic density of the better rap music and gave it quality content.

Those whose work is selected for publication in Rhaptzung will receive three complimentary copies of the magazine, and a small stipend yet to be determined. To submit send emails to Rhaptzung@gmail.com

Here’s an example, though maybe not the perfect example, but an example nonetheless of a Rhaptzung I’d written a number of years back, We Are Apache which was published in Acorn Review.

We Are Apache

The mood’s tense, we’re men brooding fenced by a common foe
The albino; so we’re arming those far from hope,
Led by the karmic load on our hero, the Chiracahuan Geronimo,
It’s not easy, marred and roped in land once ours to roam
Freely, you see we aren’t those imperials, but we’re hard to hold.
Scarred by soldiers we start to hold our prayers aloft
Despair a lot, but our stars have told that theirs are crossed,
And this affair’s not lost, but we must prepare for costs.
Their army’s spread sparsely and so far we’ve been spared from loss
By riding hard, speeding on our steeds we simply hit and run,
And if we share our lots we’ve got six of ‘em, British guns.
This rebellion could get us hung, but we’re protected by a mystic one.
Geronimo leads our bodies, The Dancer’s chants guard our spirits from
The Devil’s flick of tongue. We don’t rest and I’ll confess that it’s not fun
But shit, among an oppressive system what is in times of war?
It’s not like before the Ghosts took most in brutal crimes of lore.
Just want to be like we were, no less, and nothing more.
It’s why I was born, why I’m here, what I’m fighting and someday dying for.

It’d been two years racing from the historical abrasions:
They said our nation couldn’t stray from the reservation,
But we couldn’t stay on and return to our prior station.
Their claims on our land only planned for us to remain complacent,
Trying our weak hand at farming a place never graced by rain and
Starve smiling. Our crying was heard, and answered by a holy man
Of some roaming clan who stood and took a lonely stand.
They closed in fast, but only after he finished his ghostly chant.
As warriors we know we can’t take that, and rode hard south to Mexico.
They arrested most present close to the chant and let some go,
But many resisted the men enlisted, they stretched the necks of those.

With spirits losing energy, our bodies have begun to show it,
Resources empty excepting our scrawny horses and ten bullets.
Though we’re close knit, it’s hopeless, and the men know it.
We’ve no chance to pass the winter up here when the snows hit;
Mounted in Mexican mountains we knew we had to go quick
Down from danger into gunfire among spires, it’s a lost cause.
We’d gone higher than intended and that mistake’s cost us.
Descending will mean that death’s sting’s pending for some
Before the sun’s up, but we can’t defend all our men from their guns.

Geronimo heard word of the sorrow and came up with a plan:
Tomorrow, we’d draw straws for a decoy to make a stand.
That man would delay their scouts deployment and shake the land
With his war cries, while even more guys slip down the back crevasse
And escape at last through the hardly guarded Black Pass.

Always an equal, he drew too, first to disperse all apprehension.
The short straw would doom you to a deadly descension,
But as I mentioned, the glory of a savior as these men run.
You could cut the tension with a fork or knife, picking twigs for your life.
I was calm though, I’d seen the scene in a dream last fortnight
And stepped forth forthright and picked a short life with foresight.
“No Regrets” I said to kill the dread following my choice here,
And though it cracked from lack of moisture, my voice was sure.
As I stepped out about to begin my final attack, in passing
Geronimo’s right hand grasped me with pride and said steadfastly
The last things I heard before the ghost’s guns blasting,
“Remember lastly, that we aren’t just men, we are Apache.”

Posted: Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Category: Literary Terms, Writers, Poets, Writing Tutorials.