| �Avenue C�
Represent the Ave! Loisaida Ave, Lion of Alphabet City, everyday November, everyday Latino Month, everyday a harvest! No one has heart like we do. Puertoricans and Dominicans called truce, now we season the same pig. No one has supermarkets like we do. We got our cultural foods and buy big. You see our pride�negro, moreno, rubio, blanco.� We bring out our folded chairs, bring the living room to the streets. Loisaida, young and old, at our 3rd Street barber shop; rugged and smooth, we rep� true hip hop... But who would know,.. despite the mane show,... the Alpha Lion� is now endangered� Our home kitchen? Becomes a soup kitchen when landlords raise the apartment rent. To make more commercial space, they move a church into a cardboard box. Prefer that new German bar and that new Vienna coffee and tea. Anything for pilgrims lined up to take away our game�take away our crown. Flip the hemisphere upside down. Have their Spring time all year �round. And they even own the night. It feels like Avenue A, but the Lion still rules the day. That�s why there's a new police headquarters-- generations overdue�to tame the Lion, and if needed, cage the Lion, keep the jaws shut� turn our fields of crop into their expensive circus. You want your own popcorn? Then work two jobs, risk doin� time, or get lost. Or do what a�uela does, after church, creep over to the pharmacy and play lotto. C, long ago the government told us to jump through a hoop of burning tenements then reap what you got left to get out of the �hood. Now we know why those clowns said, �Get out of the �hood.� Makes you wonder, though, if, as a whole, the Lion will ever follow up the roar�use all claws� use all weight, all strength�wil�out, let�em know what this mighty cat is about! But for now,...Loisaida...is still in the circus ring,... until someone tries biting the last fruit of Avenue C. |