I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

And feel and its clean smell have satisfied Both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality Down to the buttons of simulated bone,

At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven. One hundred and forty-six died in the flames On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—

Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break Or talking money or politics while one fitted This armpiece with its overseam to the band

The nearly invisible stitches along the collar Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians

She burns like oil on water.She burns like a cattail torchdipped in gasoline.She glows like the fat tipof a banker's cigar,      silent as quicksilver.A tiger under a rainbow   at nightfall.She burns like a shot glass of vodka.She burns like a field of poppiesat the edge of a rain forest.She rises like dragonsmoke    to my nostrils.She burns like a burning bushdriven by a godawful wind.

We stand with our handshanging at our sides,while she burns          like a sack of dry ice.

A skirt of flamesdances around herat dusk.

The cry I bring down from the hillsbelongs to a girl still burninginside my head. At daybreak

 Or does it explode?

like a syrupy sweet?

And then run?

Does it dry up       like a raisin in the sun?

What happens to a dream deferred?

The city never sleeps, full of villains and creepsThat's where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks

Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintainAnd be prosperous, though we live dangerous, cops could justArrest me, blaming us, we're held like hostages

Young girls are grazed, each block is like a mazeFull of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed

I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testin'Give me a Smith & Wesson, I have negroes undressin'

Be having dreams that I'm a gangsta; drinking Moets, holding TecsMaking sure the cash came correct, then I steppedInvestments in stocks, sewing up the blocks to sell drugsWinning gunfights with mega-cops

never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death

And claim some corners, crews without guns are gonersIn broad daylight, stickup kids: they run up on us4-5's and gauges, Macs, in fact

Lead was hitting negroes, one ran, I made him backflipHeard a few chicks scream, my arm shook, couldn't lookGave another squeeze, heard it click, "yo, my stuff is stuck"Try to cock it, it wouldn't shoot, now I'm in dangerFinally pulled it back and saw 3 bullets caught up in the chamberSo now I'm jetting to the building lobby

G-packs get off quick, forever negroes talk stuffReminiscing about the last time the Task Force flippedNegroes be running through the block shootin'

Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes

'm like Scarface smelling amphetaminesHolding an M-16, see with the pen I'm extreme,

while the power-forward explodes past them    in a fury, taking the ball into the air by himself now and laying it gently    against the glass for a lay-up, but losing his balance in the process,    inexplicably falling, hitting the floor with a wild, headlong motion for the game he loved like a country and swiveling back to see an orange blur    floating perfectly through the net.

both forwards racing down the court the way that forwards should, fanning out and filling the lanes in tandem, moving    together as brothers passing the ball

an underhand pass toward the other guard    scissoring past a flat-footed defender who looks stunned and nailed to the floor    in the wrong direction, trying to catch sight

orange leather  

and for once our gangly starting center    boxes out his man and times his jump

A hook shot kisses the rim and hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop,

in the chalk and choke.

in the non-cheering dark,

long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.

or any know I know the ArtI mention ‑ easy ‑ Here ‑Nor any Placard boast me ‑Itʹs full as Opera ‑

o Ringlet, to my Hair,Nor hopped for Audiences ‑ like Birds ‑One Claw opon the air

I cannot dance opon my Toes ‑No Man instructed me ‑But oftentimes, among my mind,A Glee possesseth me