Soft Places - Armand Hammer

Strange places slept

Woke eyes wet, a dream of death

Bad dreams are only dreams

What a time you chose to be born

Cold world, run water till it steams

Burns like woman scorned

Grey is the day you realize she doesn’t care anymore

For sure

Jaw set, sign the form

Sky hard, wind raw

Cats paw, outside the A-rab store

The ragged gathered in the beast’s maw

Ahab washed ashore

Black, two sugars!

This is not my block

This is not my hood

This is not my stoop

This is not my room

This is not my mother’s lap

This is not my brother’s beat

This is not my father’s scold

I might have lost my teeth

These walls are painted weird

The neighbors barely speak

Her other partner’s queer

Secrets in tangled sheets

Dingy brassiere hang on the wall like a wreath

She creeps, she creeps, she creeps

The news says «Two dead, two fled.»

Iron hands, faces lead

In grey areas broke the bread

Shame burning, hit his head

Night terrors

Claw at legs from under beds

Life’s errors

Carried you here like pall-bearers

Cracked mirrors

Fierce squalls, gripped the mask aghast

Mother turns away appalled

Cold wind harbinger

Surrounded, suddenly unfamiliar

Silently, they all point the finger

«Thats the nigga!»

Vacant lot, the wing spot

The liquor mart, the dollar store

Ready vodka, make a blast

They huddle close with open sores

Afflicted, condition — contrition

Color-coded vile tops look like candy from distance

Vinyl shop with glam rock window

Mannequin akimbo dozing

Frozen moments folded

Tucked inside of 40 Belows

Last rite for Franklin Ave soldiers

No condolence

Thats not an omen thats an eviction notice

Hold it

Sold it

Rash moment

Those beans better’ve been magic homie

«Gotta have hope jack!»

Go head and quote it

Smile broken when they broke in

Blind how they stole him

Rip un-woken

Fog rolling off the ocean

Wandering ronin lay down prepared to meet that final opponent

Looping Saharan cellphone music

Greets the retreating Romans

Rope and limb, woods dark

Trees groaning

Then he rose and wept without knowing

Cash on the spot

Stuck it out

Couple hundred thou

Took that joint pension

Bounced south

Red clay tobacco field

Left a three family shell in gentrified hell

Tooth and nail

Pissing in the wishing well

Neighborhood borders keep shifting

These names keep switching

When the bodega starts to stock the red beer papi

Wet the fear

Red race tripping

Pinch face pull 9 whistle

Snatch kindles

«Look alive killa!»