Nickels

Songs like tears
rain down
from the tenement
windows
cause everybody's sad.
Kids, like cars,
line the streets,
doin' lines 
underneath the lines
of dirty sheets,
and everybody's sad,
cause you can't walk alone
in Harlem.

Nickels, like lint
drip down 
from old man 
pockets.
People can be bad.
His life, like dirt
gets tracked off fast
by kids
who ain't kidding
with their blades.
and everybody's sad
cause you can't walk alone 
in Harlem.