Isaac Was a Baller

Poem #3 of the ill-fated slam trilogy

I used to be a baller, the king of my playground.
But I was next to nothin’ when Ike Newton came to town.

Isaac was a baller he knew every angle cold.
Every shot went in the hoop the outcome was foretold.

Asked him for his secret, “How you beatin’ us?”
He smiled and said “No secret, man. I just use calculus.”
I tried to go around him, and pass it at the junction.
His elbow cracked my head he said, “That’s a concave function.”

Isaac was a baller he knew every angle cold.
Every shot went in the hoop the outcome was foretold.

On fast breaks he would shoot, from half-court with impunity.
“Ike don’t shoot no layups due to jump discontinuity.”
Asked him was he saying, that white men cannot jump?
He turned around loomed over me said, “Who you callin’ white, chump?”

Isaac was a baller he knew every angle cold.
Every shot went in the hoop the outcome was foretold.

Asked him who was better him or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
In response he monster-dunked like “We ain’t havin’ this.”
“Leibniz made the limit sep’rate—yo man, where’s it at?
I put limits everywhere. ‘Cept yo’ mama’s groceries—that’s why she so fat.”
Then he went berserk, rainin’ shots from everywhere.
Plot the curve and throw the rock. Not once did he err.

Isaac was a baller he knew every angle cold.
Every shot went in the hoop the outcome was foretold.

His basketball ability, his trash talk skills emergent,
made him undefendable: absolute convergence.
Never had no shoe deal, but I know if he did,
coke white Air Newton’s be the Scooby-Doos on the feet of every kid.
Consumed by math and science, Ike never had a wife.
In his soul that baller knew, life is ball, ball is life.

Isaac was a baller he knew every angle cold.
Every shot went in the hoop the outcome was foretold.

Life is ball, ball is life (repeat and fade until the buzzer sounds).