Karate Concrete
Reticent she returns to the streets
Where she once floated above
in hospital sheets
Hands on the walls
where small handprints still weigh
With the burden of crimson
indelible paints
Where are the hands
that once fit these young prints?
What have they grabbed at
ever since?
Nights used to be dangerous here
But now the mornings have exceeded
her deepest fears
Because that's when
the concrete creeps in
And perpetrates
with more than
the greatest sins
And weighs down
on what used to be known
as the neighborhood
Deliberate,
slow,
destructive defeat
As new corners
consolidate
the neiborhood streets
Where are the ones
she stepped with right here
Below the bar, now a bank clad
with anonymous steel?
Where are the sounds
of the childrens once heard?
Replaced with new parking
and yellowed-out curbs
Now she can only
afford to return
For a doctor,
an in-law,
or a day in the sun
Some still cling,
if the building still stands
Some sing liberation
from felonious hands
But most will get lost
in the peripheral sprawl
Where new handprints
signify on old concrete walls
Florescent excuses
for liht
Steal all the shadows
from the nights
from the nights
Parody
or progress?
You just want to tear it down
As you're standing
right in the middle
of the wrong side of town
--
Florescent excuses
for liht
Steal all the shadows
from the nights
from the nights
Parody
or progress?
You just want to tear it down
As you're standing
right in the middle
of the wrong side of town
of the wrong side of town
