It was hard to read these poems

So sad and despairing they were,

Where is the joy I asked myself?

The joy that hopes and dreams can bring us

when we’re in a drain.

I thought back to my childhood

in Hunters Point I grew

the saddest neighborhood that anybody knew.

At night when lights would twinkle

on those hills that I could view,

I would dream of manicured lawns and pastel homes,

picket fences, quiet streets with trees along the way

Someday I prayed, I hope we move to that other side of town

where I’ll find those quiet places of pastel and green and clean.

One day my mother told me in 1965

that we were packing up and going for a drive.

One bright and shining morning as our new home came to view,

I saw white paned windows in houses pastel too

with acres of green lush lawn and kids playing everywhere

I knew we had made it to that twinkling over there!

It wasn’t until much later that I learned to my surprise

that my green pastel paradise was a place still subsidized.

Sunnydale they called it

we had moved to the projects on that twinkling other side.

But don’t be sad, it’s funny to me when I think back on those days,

that we were happy as can be on my twinkling other side.