Mr. Norris had skills

Mr. Norris had a nose like a kayak
His cheeks drew a humorous sunrise across miniscule lips
Thinning hair sprinkled over his cranium to pose irony at
The startling tuft of vines always sprouting
Through the top of his shirt collar
His hands were gargantuan radioactive spiders
From a 50’s Drive-In Movie
Only they were always doused in chalk
He never forgot to wear his yamulke
On Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah
The man was so tall that if he hadn’t been so awkward
So graceless you might have thought him to be a
Starting Forward for the Knicks
This is to say he was
A high school history teacher
Looking every bit the part
Except…

1st day of class he was late
As we waited for our new U.S. History teacher to arrive
Our chatter built like a wave across a
South Pacific Beach until our crashing voices
Were silenced by a man strutting in
Wearing a Kangol hat and 8 lbs. of gold chains (all fake)
A bright orange sweat suit with a color coordinated pair of Adidas
Ghetto blaster perched on his monstrous shoulders
Run DMC bouncing out from the speakers
The tableaux finished off by a set of gold rimmed sunglasses

Donning this alter ego
Mr. Norris would spit a 9 minute rhyme
Detailing the primary and secondary causes for the Civil War
Nobody slept in his class when
In that “someone singing Digital Underground
At karaoke night” old school nasal flow of his
He kicked a lyric about the Louisiana Purchase
Or freestyled on the major tenets of FDR’s New Deal

During study hall he would trade DJ tapes with us
Play the dozens with us in the hallways between class periods
At lunch we would make cracks about his corny rhymes but
15 years later we still can’t forget Mr. Norris in his Kangol
Or the importance of Brown vs. Board of Education