185 Harlem
On my way to you, I reached the place inside me -- I call it
Harlem -- which is the border between the present and the past,
Where my world is almost broken, terminated, demolished --
Waning between the naught and the being, always in the dusk:
Crumbling paint on slanting walls; corroded metal; stagnating
Water in pipes; spit, soot, trash on cracking asphalt; rotten wood;
The decaying teeth and decomposing flesh of the addicts,
Invalids, cripples, homeless, deranged -- the zone between the doom
And the fault, the failure and the punishment, the destruction
And the defect -- the orphanage of my hopes; the ghetto of
My distress; the prison of my dreams. I call this ghost Harlem,
Hidden inside me, harmful and harsh -- a harlot in my home.
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