A Lower East Side Poem

By Miguel Pinero Just once before I die I want to climb up on a tenement sky to dream my lungs out till I cry then scatter my ashes thru the Lower East Side. So let me sing my song tonight let me feel out of sight and let all eyes be dry when they scatter my ashes thru the Lower East Side. From Houston to 14th Street from Second Avenue to the mighty D here the hustlers & suckers meet the faggots & freaks will all get high on the ashes that have been scattered thru the Lower East Side. There's no other place for me to be there's no other place that I can see there's no other town around that brings you up or keeps you down no food little heat sweeps by fancy cars & pimps' bars & juke saloons & greasy spoons make my spirits fly with my ashes scattered thru the Lower East Side . . . A thief, a junkie I've been committed every known sin Jews and Gentiles . . . Bums & Men of style . . . run away child police shooting wild . . . mother's futile wails . . . pushers making sales . . . dope wheelers & cocaine dealers . . . smoking pot streets are hot & feed off those who bleed to death . . . all that's true all that's true all that is true but this ain't no lie when I ask that my ashes be scattered thru the Lower East Side. So here I am, look at me I stand proud as you can see pleased to be from the Lower East a street fighting man a problem of this land I am the Philosopher of the Criminal Mind a dweller of prison time a cancer of Rockefeller's ghettocide this concrete tomb is my home to belong to survive you gotta be strong you can't be shy less without request someone will scatter your ashes thru the Lower East Side. I don't wanna be buried in Puerto Rico I don't wanna rest in Long Island Cemetery I wanna be near the stabbing shooting gambling fighting & unnatural dying & new birth crying so please when I die . . . don't take me far away keep me near by take my ashes and scatter them thru out the Lower East Side . . .