And so the last poem is a love poem to the streets.
Last poem is a love poem to the east side of Las Vegas.
And I just leave it there, man.
"The Streets Is Watching."
Street's still watching, still looking out, still checking
for you, still stooping right there, and nobody knows how.
Nobody whispers to their hands at night anymore.
Shit, it's just the times--
just not the time.
Street's probably tired, probably
been swelling up at the corners with ghosts and reasons
to keep hustling.
Street's probably hungry.
Shit, everybody hungry these days--
even the landlord, even the tamales lady, even the city.
Every stranger wants me to sing to them--
tell them they special, and they just like me--
just hungry like me and my dogs.
And, yeah, I feed my dogs, but they ribs just like mine--
spent their whole life biting and wishing they
were teeth, bending themselves to the heart,
caving toward what keeps them bleeding.
How you ain't notice streets is just like poetry--
just like history-- always in the shadows at sunset.
Streets be lurking in cemeteries.
Streets be full of opal and ocher spirits,
praying you make it home full.
Streets really just want you to dance a step.
Let them lead you for a turn--
lift you in a moment busy with magic like you.
Streets know you passing by--
see you coming for a season.
Streets love you anyway--
like anything that has thoughtlessly
kissed your palms, and your shoes, and never claimed you--
just watched for your return.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for allowing me to share
these poems with you all.
It really means a lot for a--
That was fantastic.
That was amazing.
I especially love some of the comments that you made about--
that there's joy, and there's a sensory dance,
and there was an omniscience to your work.
And I loved-- I'm going to misquote it,
and I'm going to ask you to make sure
that you tell me what it is.
It's like you even might become you, or you might even--
Yeah, if you're adult-- if you're lucky,
you might become you.
You know what I mean?
I think that's what the process-- the thing is--
I mean-- so dope about dope to me
is that it's a thing that we understand.
I mean, take it to the literal sense like cocaine.
You take a leaf, and you extract from it, and you've changed it,
and you've altered it, and you've refined it,
but what you get at the end is what you call pure, raw, uncut.
There's something about the essence of a thing that once
you distill it-- once a person becomes dope--
we see stuff in the world--
that's dope.
What that means is--
that is undeniable greatness.
That is like objective excellence,
and that's something that--
I think, when you find that in yourself, it's
because you found you.
We celebrate folks for real--
not like the people we celebrate for petty, stupid reasons.
But when we really find people that are great,
and we know greatness, is because we
see what we call authenticity.
We see them being themselves in a way that all of us
want to be individuals who can be part of a community,
because we know who we are.
And I think that part of being dope
means that you have to embrace the process.
I was like--
I mean, literally there's gasoline.
You know what I mean?
It's basically-- sometimes getting
to that part is like dumping yourself in gasoline
and going through a process of refinement,
and then seeing what's left.
I love that, and I want to hear more about it--
hoping at the end because, I think,
it's been interesting to talk to each artist a little bit
about what the process was, and how it changed them,
or how, in some way or another, it
just became something different than you had originally
imagined.
So thank you so much-- beautiful work.
Beautiful work.
Thank you.