Darkened alleys
And tunnel ways
Places where I played
In my childhood days

 Vacant lots
And streets with asphalt tops
Cement cracked sidewalks
And small talks
With just my friends

Kick the can
And a pink rubber ball
Hit with a stick
Or bounced off of
A wall or a stoop
Stringin’ a top
And throwin’ it to spin
Things were so much different then

Scooters made with steel roller skates
Discarded wood
And crooked nails hammered straight
Life in east harlem
All kinds of kids playing together
It was great

Hear the call of my mother’s voice
At play days end
Rising sun
Start a new day all over again

The world could learn a lot
From those playful
Innocent
East harlem summer days

THE GHOSTS OF POWELL STREET

In the darkened recesses of my mind
There exists a hidden room
Haunted by spectral memories
Fraught with feelings
Of fear and gloom

Memories of an inner-city place
And a street named powell
A place reserved for people
Unlike the color of my skin
Like them
Trapped in poverty
Where do I begin

I have seen things
People unlike me
Have endured
Things that transcend the ordinary
Yet are common ground
For the scorned

Step into that ghost-like haze
Possessed by mental images
Of tormented days

Like a never ending loop of film
Capturing insanities brink
Images imprinted upon my soul
Inscribed in indelible ink

Travel with me
Through those crime ridden
And forlorn streets of strife
A day by day existence
That can abruptly end
By the lead of a bullet
Or the steel of a knife

Through those vein cracked streets
Course heartbreaking miseries
And the painful thoughts and memories
Of lost generations
Whose soulful cries of anguish
Can still be heard
Sounding through the ghostly winds
And echoing through the subconscious ether

Thoughts and memories
Now tucked away
In the recesses of a darkened
Hidden room
A room confined
To a world of past tomorrows
(Marked, quarantined)
The domain of inescapable past sorrows