Isn't better now to back
To the hood where the Eden
Is in ruins, silent,
Among the bullets echoed with no names?

Even the crippled that hold fast
Like dignitaries to empty beer bottles,
With a good for a drink at the tips
Of tongued devils groaning that all
Have failed them.

     Dealers on the corner
With their ominous eyes and crooked
Cash on the beaten sidewalks of a ghostly
Corner, wondering if they can return
To innocence like a prodigal son,
Home to end an evil spell,
Might he end up free as in dead
As he walks with a half hope
And pockets of cash not his own.

    When the homes stop falling sideways
And the floors don't break at
Nights step, walking by old frames
When the home knew better days,
Half open eyes walking about
The enclosure's cracked walls
And roach infested walls,
No water and asking themselves
If it's all worth it.

And I return here in a stranger's
Stance with mind wide open,
I watch the leather bucket stands
Dripping its drop like a weeping
Woman for a child.

   The sun decieves here,
Light sheds over burning fountains
Where the trash is unfiltered,
The homeless suffer chronic mist sleep,
    The ******'s eyes closed with
A faithful candle hoping
To open her eyes and save the neighborhood
From itself or its repetitions,
And still they bury one everyday
Too young to go,
The doves humming above when
Another is laid on a slab dead from
Hopelessness of it all.

There are no new arrivals here,
This is the hood after all,
If you can make it out and remember
The overflowing reflection,
Bring back a fresh and humble view
With some dramatic memory,
You may survive the barrio,
But the intimate response
Of sadness when you visit,
Somehow the nightmares never go.