As I drive thru the city at night
the streets come alive and pull at my soul.
Darkness moves in and out of the headlights.
Then just as quick
fade to black…”watch out, fool!”
Shadows turn into bodies as I approach.
Bodies that dart and dance and dance and dart
in-between back and forth
to and fro 
from here 
to there
going nowhere.
Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time


Night time kids all ages all sizes
With night time mothers 
and sometime fathers.
They have become prowlers and scroungers.
Hungry 
angry 
lonely 
tired…
”why don’t that boy have a coat on!”
Playing double-dutch to 50-cent
basketball with a milk crate
tag in the projects
dice against the wall
dodge ball in the street.
Playing mom and dad and child all at the same time.
Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time 
time to get tight time
time to get right time


Grown up teen girls in
yeast-infection tight jeans
trying to f*ck their way into 
a rap-video type love.
Hoping that if the babydaddy’s
don’t
the babies that are sure to follow
surely will
love them….”Girl, he got loot!”
Please, just love them.
Love them like they need to be loved.
Not that ol’
night time love.
Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time 
time to get tight time
time to get right time


The corners are fat with tough
man-child fodder for the 
prison-industrial complex.
Oversized jeans hang loose on hips
that sway to the beat of long-lost tribal roots
masquerading as music….”Yo… What you need man?”
According to the papers
they all got guns.
So
the cops have the right to
shoot first 
right?
thugs
The
Human
Underdeveloped
Growth 
System
keeps them being boys
even at 30.
Eating them alive.
America always eats its young,
especially at night.
Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time 
time to get tight time
time to get right time


Bars and
churches and
chicken shacks and
rib joints and
pool halls and
laundry mats and
liquor stores…”For the brutha’s that ain’t here.”
They shine like an
oasis in the black dessert
of the night.
The corner bodega has become the Micky D’s
of the ghetto.
Where you can get a beef patty
Chore-boy
a lighter and condoms
all in one stop
all night long
Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time 
time to get tight time
time to get right time


So, I drive like an outsider
like a tourist in vegas
like a country boy in the apple
like a church group in D.C.
flashbulb eyes
with memory photographs…”Ain’t that Clarence over there?”
looking
looking
like that dude in greek mythology
looking
looking
like that brutha selling the final call
looking
looking
like my mother for my daddy
looking
looking
for an honest man
in the night time.
Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time 
time to get tight time
time to get right time