two blocks away from the cove
by the culdesac
modernist lines of abrasion
like modeling from an architect
marvel at generational gradient opposite
ingratiate excellence
from a black boy
background noise deemed incompetent
rose somehow
stuck out of the stone
overwatcher
mobile home
caprice and broughams
ride past
porch board members
going over strategy
on a money block
handheld sales in lrg shells
on university boulevard
we can’t go
if you on that
nacho cheese over plastic
eastern asians sold us durags
grew up with they progeny
we attempted to improve that
they put a skate bowl in the gallery
parentals had to pay us just to move back
facts
it was a respite
del prado
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The trees hum in their stillness, the wind cuts through the branches like a whisper meant for no one but him. vyle. stands there, thoughts unraveling like film, playing back in waves—not here, not now, but Hyde Park, the Cove, the Point.
Kenwood Liquorz. Judi’s house. The meeting grounds of a different time.
The Cove—a Hyde Park bar, but more than that. A collision point, where U of C students and Blackstones shared space without explanation, where conversations were equal parts academia and street code, where the beer was cheap, and the history was rich.
And just a short walk away, Promontory Point.
Not the one in the postcards, not the one for wedding photos or city-approved gatherings. The real Point. The one that belonged to the kids, the creatives, the ones who built something before they had permission to.
The after-school hip-hop space.
vyle. was there, a high school kid making the pilgrimage weekly, drawn to the heat of the culture. Cyphers forming without warning—older heads from the Nacrobats cutting through beats with surgical precision, their words hitting like warnings, like scripture.
Pugslee Atomz, Open Mike Eagle, Hebru Brantley, Rift Napalm (Still Rift)—masters of every element, graffiti, rap, breakdancing, DJing, a collective so feared and respected that stepping into their space meant knowing you might not leave with your pride intact.
The Go-Getters—Kanye before the legend was written, GLC before the world took notice, standing in that same circle, testing, battling, making sure every word counted.
And if you stepped in unprepared? They’d let you know.
No hand-holding, no gentle corrections—either you rose to the occasion, or you left with a lesson you wouldn’t forget.
And then, the blackbooks.
Passed from hand to hand, graffiti writers layering their names like they were stacking bricks, building something that no city ordinance could erase.
Little NUKE—before he was KRAM—tagging with a hand that already knew it was meant to be remembered.
Brandon Breaux, not yet the artist the world knew, breaking with a style that blurred the line between music and movement, between discipline and freedom.
The Point was a church without walls, a proving ground without referees, a stage before there were stages.
And now, standing in Labagh Woods, the past still flickering through him, something else appears.
It hovers, shifts, undulates—a black metallic form, neither fully solid nor fully fluid, an object that refuses to define itself. A vessel? A craft? A presence?
It does not move, but it does not remain still.
It does not speak, but it does not remain silent.
Another sign. Another marker. Another whisper from the unknown telling him—move forward.