Some of the younger ones will become gangsters. Some will die and others will go on living without a soul, a future, or a reason to live.

My cell is crisscrossed with laundry lines, my T-shirts, boxer shorts, socks and pants are drying. Just like it used to be in my neighborhood: from all the tenements laundry hung window to window.

We came here to get away from false promises,

So we go about our business, blacks with blacks, poor whites with poor whites, chicanos and indians by themselves. The administration says this is right, no mixing of cultures, let them stay apart, like in the old neighborhoods we came from.

Our expectations are high: in the old world, they talked about rehabilitation, about being able to finish school, and learning an extra good trade. But right away we are sent to work as dishwashers, to work in fields for three cents an hour.

The old men who have lived here stare at us, from deep disturbed eyes, sulking, retreated.

At the gates we are given new papers, our old clothes are taken and we are given overalls like mechanics wear. We are given shots and doctors ask questions. Then we gather in another room where counselors orient us to the new land we will now live in. We take tests

Immigrants in Our Own Land

We are born with dreams in our hearts, looking for better days ahead.

The city never sleeps, full of villains and creep

The fiends fight to get drugs I just max, I dream I can sit backAnd lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewnOr the legal luxury life,

Young girls are grazed, each block is like a mazeFull of black rats trapped,

Thinking of cash flow, religion and shelterWhenever frustrated, I'm a hijack Delta

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-copsBut just a negro walking with his finger on the triggerMake enough figures until my pockets get biggerI ain't the type of brother made for you to start testin'Give me a Smith & Wesson, I have negroes undressin'

Keeps large negroes erasin' and their wives basin'

Got younger negroes pulling the triggers, bringing fame to their nameAnd claim some corners, crews without guns are gonersIn broad daylight, stickup kids: they run up on us4-5's and gauges, Macs, in fact

Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes

Yeah yeah, aiyyo black it's time (word?)(Word, it's time negro?)

so sweet and so cold

you were probably saving for breakfast

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

Forgive me they were delicious

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—

its clean smell have satisfied Both her and me.

She burns like a burning bush driven by a godawful wind.

She burns like oil on water. She burns like a cattail torch dipped in gasoline. She glows like the fat tip of a banker's cigar, silent as quicksilver.

We stand with our hands hanging at our sides, while she burns

he burns like a piece of paper.

Or crust and sugar over—        like a syrupy sweet?

 Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or fester like a sore—        And then run?

Does it dry up        like a raisin in the sun?

What happens to a dream deferred?

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

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning,

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

No Man instructed me

I cannot dance opon my Toes

in the vertigo cold.in the hot paralysis.

I call for youcultivation of strength to heal and enhancein the non-cheering dark

what wants to crumble you down, to sicken

I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.

To Prisoners

perfectly through the net.

moving    together as brothers passing the ball between them without a dribble, without    a single bounce hitting the hardwood until the guard finally lunges out    and commits to the wrong man

almost exactly like a coach’s drawing on the blackboard,

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 of a high, gliding dribble and a man    letting the play develop in front of him in slow motion

perfectly, gathering the orange leather    from the air like a cherished possession

Fast Break