I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

s the imprisoned lightning, and her name

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

and so cold

I have eaten

so sweet

they were delicious

Forgive me

for breakfast

saving

you were probably

and which

the icebox

that were in

he plums

he label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.

Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,

The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters

Down to the buttons of simulated bone,

Both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality

And feel and its clean smell have satisfied

nd she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit

Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma

Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma

eorge Herbert, your descendant is a Black

s slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:

Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton

The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter

Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,

o wear among the dusty clattering looms.

Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers

y a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,

To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed

nvented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,

oundstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans

Or a major chord.   Prints, plaids, checks,

Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme

Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked

Wonderful how the pattern matches perfectly

ike Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.”

Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers—

nd fluttered up from his shirt as he came down

He stepped to the sill himself, his jacket flared

Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held

Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once

A third before he dropped her put her arms  

To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.

And then another. As if he were helping them up

Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.

Up to the windowsill, then held her out

Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step

The witness in a building across the street

On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—

One hundred and forty-six died in the flames

At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.

The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze

The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,

Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,

This armpiece with its overseam to the band

Or talking money or politics while one fitted

Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break

Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians

The nearly invisible stitches along the collar

The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,

Shirt

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell

Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,

Death Be Not Proud by John Donne (1572-1631)DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee

Death Be Not Proud

driven by a godawful wind.

She burns like a burning bush

to my nostrils.

he rises like dragonsmoke

at the edge of a rain forest.

She burns like a field of poppies

She burns like a shot glass of vodka.

at nightfall.

A tiger under a rainbow

silent as quicksilver.

f a banker's cigar,

She glows like the fat tip

dipped in gasoline.

She burns like a cattail torch

She burns like oil on water.

like a sack of dry ice.

while she burns

hanging at our sides,

We stand with our hands

at dusk.

dances around her

A skirt of flames

in a thigh-shaped valley.

She burns like foxfire

she burns like a piece of paper.

inside my head. At daybreak

belongs to a girl still burning

The cry I bring down from the hills

You and I Are Disappearing

r does it explode?

like a heavy load.

Maybe it just sags

 like a syrupy sweet?

Or crust and sugar over—

 Does it stink like rotten meat?

And then run?

Or fester like a sore—

like a raisin in the sun?

Does it dry up

What happens to a dream deferred?

Harlem

New York state of mind

Nasty Nas

I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times

I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death

Inhale deep like the words of my breath

In the streets I can greet ya, about cigars I teach ya

I'm an addict for sneakers, 20s of beliefs and broads with beepers

hat's where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks

The city never sleeps, full of villains and creeps

Never put me in your box if your stuff eats tapes

The smooth criminal on beat breaks

My rhymin' is a vitamin held without a capsule

I'm taking rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow

And the stuff that I write is even tougher than life

It's only right that I was born to use mics

Arrest me, blaming us, we're held like hostages

And be prosperous, though we live dangerous, cops could just

Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain

I got so many rhymes I don't think I'm too sane

Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones, homes

And lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn

The fiends fight to get drugs I just max, I dream I can sit back

I'm living where the nights is jet-black

From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back, black

Full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed

Young girls are grazed, each block is like a maze

In the P.J.'s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays

Whenever frustrated, I'm a hijack Delta

Thinking of cash flow, religion and shelter

Give me a Smith & Wesson, I have negroes undressin'

I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testin'

Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger

But just a negro walking with his finger on the trigger

Nothing's equivalent to the New York state of mind

Nasty NasNasty NasNasty Nas.

Winning gunfights with mega-cops

Investments in stocks, sewing up the blocks to sell drugs

Making sure the cash came correct, then I stepped

Be having dreams that I'm a gangsta; drinking Moets, holding Tecs

New York state of mindNew York state of mindNew York state of mindNew York state of mindNew York state of mind

I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind

Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined

I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death

It drops deep as it does in my breath

Keeps large negroes erasin' and their wives basin'

But yo, you gotta slide on a vacation, inside information

And if it's good, she'll bring you customers in measuring pots

I know this crackhead who said she's got to do drugs it's all she's got

So hold your stash 'til the drug price drop

There was a snitch on the block getting negroes knocked

Same negroes will catch a back-to-back, snatching your slacks in black

4-5's and gauges, Macs, in fact

In broad daylight, stickup kids: they run up on us

And claim some corners, crews without guns are goners

ot younger negroes pulling the triggers, bringing fame to their name

(So what you saying?) It's like the game ain't the same

And it was full of children probably couldn't see as high as I be

Finally pulled it back and saw 3 bullets caught up in the chamber

Try to cock it, it wouldn't shoot, now I'm in danger

Gave another squeeze, heard it click, "yo, my stuff is stuck"

Heard a few chicks scream, my arm shook, couldn't look

Lead was hitting negroes, one ran, I made him backflip

Pick the Mac up, told brothers, "Back up, " the Mac spit

I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin

Once they caught us off-guard, the Mac-10 was in the grass and

Time to start the revolution, catch a body, head for Houston