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Just once before I die
I want to climb up on a
tenement sky
to dream my lungs out till
I cry
then scatter my ashes thru
the Lower East Side

(Drumming fades in.)

So let me sing my song tonight
let me feel out of sight . . .

We began walking, spreading the ashes, and a lot of people came into the streets and joined. The procession was from Houston to fourteenth on D and from fourteenth to Houston on C, and so forth, until second and then we came back. But towards the projects, women, old women would fall to their knees and take the ashes and make the sign of the cross.

A thief, a junkie I've been . . .

To see the junkies bow their heads and almost bare their freshly wounded vein, you know, to the ashes . . . there is a very famous Puerto Rican singer who's strung out and he was on the street that day, and he broke down and cried. And when I spread some ashes, he threw himself on top of the ashes and wept into the sidewalk. And absolutely nobody disturbed him.

This concrete tomb is my home . . .

I took care that every detail in the poem was taken care of.

I don't want to be buried in Puerto Rico . . .

That he didn't land up in Puerto Rico like his family might have wished, but that he landed up in the asphalt and concrete and beer can roses at the Lower East Side.

So please when I die
don't take me far away
keep me nearby
take my ashes and scatter them throughout the Lower East Side.

(Drumming fades out.)

Producer: Stacy Abramson / Production assistance: Steve Zeitlin, Dave Isay, and Meagan Howell / Funded by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Corporation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

"Miguel Algarín, Nuyorican Poet" premiered June 21, 1998, on Weekend Edition. Copyright © 1998 Sound Portraits Productions. All Rights Reserved.

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This piece is available in the following audio formats [2:35 min]:
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		56 kbps Real Audio
		ISDN Real Audio

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