Love in fantastic triumph sat,
Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow'd,
For whom fresh pains he did create,
And strange tyrannic power he shew'd;
From thy bright eyes he took his fire,
Which round about in sport he hurl'd;
But 'twas from mine he took desire
Enough to undo the amorous world.
From me he took his sighs and tears,
......
And when, in the city in which I love you,
even my most excellent song goes unanswered,
andI mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search of you...
That I negotiate fog, bituminous
rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin,
or two men jackaling a third in some alley
weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I
......
I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
......
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
......
By day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and
has a soul.
Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into
it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are
poured out again back to the streets, prairies and
valleys.
It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and
out all day that give the building a soul of dreams
and thoughts and memories.
(Dumped in the sea or fixed in a desert, who would care
......
To all you rhymers that like the beat,
come join the rappers on the street.
It's time for us to hear the best,
we gonna put you to the test.
Bring on all words that rhyme,
for every verse must sound sublime.
We got no time for idle sounds,
the finest rhymes will be renowned.
So if you think your game enough,
Let’s hear you play some rapper stuff.
......
My sweet canary just loves to sing,
with his yellow beak and golden wing.
His lovely songs will make you shake,
all other tunes will sound a fake.
But as I sit and think alone,
I feel my heart is made of stone.
My precious bird could be my sin,
I keep his soul well locked within.
For every soul is born so free,
I doubt your mind will disagree.
......
In an urban street I met a girl
her name was Annabelle,
she was alone a jolly soul
with a happy tale to tell.
She stood so tall
a precious pearl
with a hat of golden locks,
her eyes were blue
with many hue
just like a marble rock.
......
near the close of day
violet sun's turned mellow
gold rose all aglow
then peach and plums swirl
whereas blue-green day left, spent
red creeps in, silent
clouds of antique rose
where has cream butterfly gone
......
Morning dews glitter at the edges of grasses
We children look our faces into them
We see the sun-shine lash
Upon the dews
There none to blame
So, our hope gets loose.
Now morning dews glitter at the edges of grasses
We children run forward to take lesson
Or, to be men in human dresses
......