Memories of the Housing Projects

                             1
                             With appetite and attitude she seized,
                             scooping the inner chalk circle's delights.
                             "The Raven", hid the children's tops rooftop.
                             A boy surmounted the height and retrieved
                             as she watched hackling and cackling,
                             screeching not of wreaking havoc but play.
                             Emptiness stands were memories where formed,
                             darker the land than the bird that had played.

                             2
                             The stark prairie viewed through the window bars.
                             A weedy landscape, tall dead grass ... small sticks.
                             Sparrows, crows, and "The Raven", feasted there ,
                             a lot for a boy's imagination.
                             Walking within he picked up a small stick,
                             he gave it a hurl killing a sparrow.
                             He turned from where old buildings now stand,
                             saddened again, seeing home was no more.

                             3
                             Soft porous cement formed a brown brick grid.
                             The walls stood tall giving the call to all.
                             With eagerness, he carved the initials.
                             The boy and his love now immortalized.
                             Bigger kids, with small picks, chiseled the bricks.
                             Hearts to start, but then came the gang symbols.
                             The gangs still roam where the brown-grid had stood,
                             madness that forced a boy into manhood.

                             4
                             They were black and zippered on the outside.
                             Tassels and carved leather replaced laces,
                             shoes that the girl across the way refused.
                             The young man was poor ... forced, he wore the shoes;
                             humiliated he avoided her.
                             Winter came and his snowball hit her face.
                             Nothing at all to do with lace-less-shoes
                             gone like The Projects ... they later married.