Words on the Train

This is a poem I recently wrote while reminiscing about growing up in New York in the 90s and spending time at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Big up to ALL the slam and spoken word artists that I watched spit truth bombs in Alphabet City.


Words used to flow outta me
Riding on the trains through the city.
It was like the blur of the passing subway lights
Rhymes and verses streaking past my mind's eyes.
I felt angry, charged, confident that my words were daggers
To the egotistical hubris of New York's vanity.
My observations shed light where no New Yorker dared to stare
My wit brought the non-believers to their knees
Begging to over-stand how they'd been so blind,
So unwilling to validate the fallacies around them.
Those words danced with the graffiti spun into oblivion
Finding their home among the trash piles deep
In the bowels of that city.
It was all said before -
To different beats, cadences, inflections, tones and emphases.
Not a whole lot has changed but those words seem to stay the same,
Carved into the tracks etched into the memory of that city.
Those words stayed there, they they don't visit me anymore.
They found their place, dancing their way out of me
To their rightful owner -
New York City.