Before I Sleep

Before I Sleep

How long must I walk?
What will be my sign?
A street epitath of chalk
or a final white line?

Will I find sleep on a wintery ghetto street
or in a jungle corner's sweltering heat?

Will the crack heads take the Jordans off my feet
when my body turns up and my ruin is complete?

A nigger comes and a nigger goes
on the corner a pimp harvests his hoes

Time goes by and the shit goes on
and I just hope to make it to dawn

I have read the poems of Robert Frost,
of his snowy white woods, dark and deep
But on me those empty words are lost
cause this is what I think before I sleep