[Spoken Word: Hanif]
I'm crazy about this city
Daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half
In the top half, I see looking faces
and it's not easy to tell which are people
which the work of stonemasons
Below is a shadow where any blasé thing takes place
Clarinets and lovemaking, fists
and the voices of sorrowful women
A city like this one makes me dream tall
and feel in on things
Hep, it's the bright steel rocking above the shade below
that does it
When I look over strips of green grass lining the river
At church steeples
and into the cream-and-copper
halls of apartment buildings, I'm strong
Alone, yes, but top-notch and indestructible
Like the City in 1926
when all the wars are over
and there will never be another one
The people down there in the shadow are happy about that
At last, at last, everything's ahead
The smart ones say so and people listening to them
and reading what they write down agree
Here comes the new
Look out, there goes the sad stuff; the bad stuff
The things-nobody-could-help stuff
The way everybody was then and there
Forget that; history is over, you all
and everything's ahead at last
In halls and offices people
are sitting around thinking future thoughts
about projects and bridges
and fast-clicking trains underneath
The A&P hires a colored clerk
Big-legged women with pink kitty tongues
roll money into green tubes for later on
Then they laugh and put their arms around each other
Regular people corner thieves in alleys
for quick retribution and, if he is stupid
and has robbed wrong, thieves corner him too
Hoodlums hand out goodies
do their best to stay interesting
and since they are being watched for excitement
they pay attention to their clothes
and the carving out of insults
Nobody wants to be an emergency at Harlem Hospital
But if the Negro surgeon is visiting
pride cuts down the pain
And although the hair of the first class
of colored nurses was declared unseemly
for the official Bellevue nurse's cap
There are thirty-five of them now
all dedicated and superb in their profession
Nobody says it's pretty here; nobody says it's easy either
What it is is decisive
and if you pay attention to the street plans, all laid out
the City can't hurt you