MY NAME IS HUNTER'S POINT
I am a child
I am a corner in a neighbourhood
I am an empty bus everyone is afraid of
I am a shoe shine man gone out of business
I am a liquor store of dreams that die hard
I see a police car left burning on the street
I am a schoolyard being torn down
I am a hill of weeds in the sun

My Name is Hunter's Point

I was here before you were born
I am a small wooden church on the hill where you prayed
I am a home for runaway girls
with a desperate view of the bay
I am a boy hiding afraid beneath my bed
I am a mother climbing the hill home from work
I carried your father home dead drunk in my arms
I walked with your father over the hills with our dogs
I loved my next door neighbor as a brother

My Name is Hunter's Point

The word "ghetto" does not say what I am
I am a fig tree in the front yard of my childhood
I am being stripped everyday like a car in a wrecking yard
I was the slaughterhouse that broke your father's back
I was the shipyard left to rot in the sun
I am a hillside of ice plants blooming violet in the spring
I am tired of City hall's lies
I still don't have a job
There are no newspapers that say what I am
There are no films made about my life
There are no songs that sing me to sleep
There is no river that runs through my heart
I am a railroad going nowhere through your land

My Name is Hunter's Point

I am the last visitor to a dying merchant marine
I am the last person who saw your father alive
I am the last house on the hill overlooking my past
I am the last eyes that saw the horses running free
On the shoulders of my neighbors I was carried to my death
These are the last names of people who still remember me
This is the last photograph of my wife and I
when we were happy

My Name is Hunter's Point

I remember a time
I killed my brother for going with my girl
I blew his head away with a shotgun from a speeding car
I went mad when they destroyed my dream
I was left hanging dead on the baseball park fence
I was killed for a nickel over a package of chewing gum
The police officer put a bullet through my head
no questions asked

My Name is Hunter's Point

I'm good with a knife
I was beat up because my husband lost his job
I only cried when she didn't understand me
I only killed because I didn't know who to turn to
I began to drink because I wasn't myself anymore
Mornings brought only pain and words of hate
against my wife and kids
I couldn't cry anymore so I just stared into my life
until it disappeared

My Name is Hunter's Point

I was the police officer that brought your drunk old man home on my back
I was the priest that tried to lead your father
to God in the end
I was the doctor that discovered too late what was wrong
I was the son that you called a dirty yellow haired
son of a bitch
You hated me because I was black
You hated me because I was white
You hated me because I was poor
You hated me because I was just like you
You hated me because I wasn't young anymore
You hated me because I couldn't stay pretty for you
You hated me because you couldn't sleep
You hated me and I hated you and we'd never even met
You hated me for what you couldn't be
I loved you for what you were
Can you remember me
At sunrise you always said
There wasn't a more beautiful place in the world.

back to top