Miguel Piñero (1946-1988) entered this world in the belly of U.S. empire, the island of Puerto Rico. Like almost half of the island’s population, he and his family migrated to New York in the 1950s, settling in the urban jungle of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. A child of the streets, who started getting into gangs and drugs and crime at an early age, Piñero was in and out of the juvenile justice system, his formal preparation for an adult life in prison.
At the age of 25, while serving a sentence at Sing Sing, he wrote a play, Short Eyes, as part of a prison writing workshop. When he got out, two years later, it was performed at famed Riverside Church, where it caught the eye of a noted producer. When the play opened on Broadway, Piñero seemed an overnight success. It was nominated for six Tony Awards, and it garnered the New York Drama Critics Circle Awards and the Obie.
It became a move, Piñero a part-time actor and full-time writer. With others he started the famed Nuyorican Poets Café, perhaps the single greatest institutional effort behind the poetic movement today called “slam” poetry. He was a poet, a playwright, and a screenplay writer for TV and film. But he was also a junkie, a drinker, a child of the pain and violence of which he wrote. He died in 1988, of cirrhosis.
His words live on.
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A LOWER EAST SIDE POEM (1980)
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.So let me sing my song tonight
let me feel out of sight
and let all eyes be dry
when they scatter my ashes thru
the Lower East Side.From Houston to 14th Street
from Second Avenue to the mighty D
here the hustlers & suckers meet
the faggots and freaks will all get
high
on the ashes that have been scattered
thru the Lower East Side.There’s no other place for me to be
there’s no other place that I can see
there’s no other town around that
brings you up or keeps you down
no food little heat sweeps by
fancy cars & pimps’ bars & juke saloons
& greasy spoons make my spirits fly
with my ashes scattered thru the
Lower East Side.A thief, a junkie I’ve been
committed every known sin
Jews and Gentiles. . . Bums and Men
of style. . . run away child
police shooting wild. . .mother’s futile wail. . . pushers
making sales. . . dope wheelers
& cocaine dealers. . . smoking pot
streets are hot & feed off those who bleed to
death. . .all that’s true
all that’s true
all that is true
but this ain’t no lie
when I ask that my ashes be scattered thru
the Lower East Side.So here I am, look at me
I stand proud as you can see
pleased to be from the Lower East
a street fighting man
a problem of this land
I am the Philosopher of the Criminal Mind
a dweller of prison time
a cancer of Rockefeller’s ghettocide
this concrete tomb is my home
to belong to survive you gotta be strong
you can’t be shy less without request
someone will scatter your ashes thru
the Lower East Side.I don’t wanna be buried in Puerto Rico
I don’t wanna rest in long island cemetery
I wanna be near the stabbing shooting
gambling fighting & unnatural dying
& new birth crying
so please when I die. . .
don’t take me far away
keep me near by
take my ashes and scatter them thru out
the Lower East Side. . .
Please feel free to share your thoughts below…
LATINO LIKE ME 
Piñero is one of my all time favorites!! Here are two more:
The Book of Genesis According to St. Miguelito
Before the beginning
God created God
In the beginning
God created the ghettos & slums
and God saw this was good.
So God said,
“Let there be more ghettos & slums”
and there were more ghettos & slums.
But God saw this was plain
so
to decorate it
God created leadbase paint and then
God commanded the rivers of garbage & filth
to flow gracefully through the ghettos.
On the third day
because on the second day God was out of town
On the third day
God’s nose was running
& his jones was coming down and God
in his all knowing wisdom
knew he was sick
he needed a fix
so God
created the backyards of the ghettos
& the alleys of the slums
in heroin & cocaine
and
with his divine wisdom & grace
God created hepatitis
who begat lockjaw
who begat malaria
who begat degradation
who begat
GENOCIDE
and God knew this was good
in fact God knew things couldn’t git better
but he decided to try anyway
On the fourth day
God was riding around Harlem in a gypsy cab
when he created the people
and he created these beings in ethnic proportion
but he saw the people lonely & hungry
and from his eminent rectum
he created a companion for these people
and he called this companion
capitalism
who begat racism
who begat exploitation
who begat male chauvinism
who begat machismo
who begat imperialism
who begat colonialism
who begat wall street
who begat foreign wars
and God knew
and God saw
and God felt this was extra good
and God said
VAYAAAAAAA
On the fifth day
the people kneeled
the people prayed
the people begged
and this manifested itself in a petition
a letter to the editor
to know why? WHY? WHY? qué pasa babyyyyy?????
and God said,
“My fellow subjects
let me make one thing perfectly clear
by saying this about that:
NO . . .. . .. . ..COMMENT!”
but on the sixth day God spoke to the people
he said . . . “PEOPLE!!!
the ghettos & the slums
& all the other great things I’ve created
will have dominion over thee
and then
he commanded the ghettos & slums
and all the other great things he created
to multiply
and they multiplied
On the seventh day God was tired
so he called in sick
collected his overtime pay
a paid vacation included
But before God got on that t. w. a.
for the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico
He noticed his main man Satan
planting the learning trees of consciousness
around his ghetto edens
so God called a news conference
on a state of the heavens address
on a coast to coast national t. v. hook up
and God told the people
to be
COOL
and the people were cool
and the people kept cool
and the people are cool
and the people stay cool
and God said
Vaya . .…
and another one of Pinero’s classics….
“Seekin’ the Cause”
he was Dead
he never Lived
died
died
he died seekin’ a Cause
seekin’ the Cause
because
he said
he never saw the cause
but he heard
the cause
heard the cryin’ of hungry ghetto children
heard the warnin’ from Malcolm
heard the tractors pave new routes to new prisons
died seekin’ the Cause
seekin’ a Cause
he was dead on arrival
he never really Lived
uptown . . . downtown . . . crosstown
body was round all over town
seekin’ the Cause
thinkin’ the Cause was 75 dollars & gator shoes
thinkin’ the Cause was sellin’ the white lady to black
children
thinkin’ the cause is to be found in gypsy rose or j. b.
or dealin’ wacky weed
and singin’ du-wops in the park after some chi-chiba
he died seekin’ the Cause
died seekin’ a Cause
and the Cause was dyin’ seekin’ him
and the Cause was dyin’ seekin’ him
and the Cause was dyin’ seekin’ him
he wanted a color t. v.
wanted a silk on silk suit
he wanted the Cause to come up like the mets & take the
world series
he wanted . . . he wanted . . . he wanted . . . he wanted
to want more wants
but
he never gave
he never gave
he never gave his love to children
he never gave his heart to old people
&
never did he ever give his soul to his people
he never gave his soul to his people
because he was busy seekin’ a cause
busy
busy perfectin’ his voice to harmonize the national anthem
with spiro t agnew
busy perfectin’ his jive talk so that his flunkiness
wouldn’t show
busy perfectin’ his viva-la-policia speech
downtown . . . uptown . . . midtown . . . crosstown
his body was found all over town
seekin’ a Cause
seekin’ the Cause
found
in the potter fields of an o. d.
found
in the bowery with the d. d. t.’s
his legs were left in viet-nam
his arms were found in sing-sing
his scalp was on Nixon’s belt
his blood painted the streets of the ghetto
his eyes were still lookin’ for jesus to come down
on some cloud & make everything ok
when jesus died in attica
his brains plastered all around the frames of the pentagon
his voice still yellin’ stars & stripes 4 ever
riddled with the police bullets his taxes bought
he died seekin’ a Cause
seekin’ the Cause
while the Cause was dyin’ seekin’ him
he died yesterday
he’s dyin’ today
he’s dead tomorrow
died seekin’ a Cause
died seekin’ the Cause
& the Cause was in front of him
& the Cause was in his skin
& the Cause was in his speech
& the Cause was in his blood
but
he died seekin’ the Cause
he died seekin’ a Cause
he died
deaf
dumb
&
blind
he died
& never found his Cause
because
you see he never never
knew that he was the
Cause.
Thanks for sharing this tribute to Miguel Piñero, Tomas.
Another reason why I follow your blog.
Best regards,
Raul
Wow, thank you for posting this – that picture is haunting!
so rad! He makes my heart pound louder.
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