Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Music Plays


sometimes,
i'm this
 but just now, i'm this




Manhattan is a big cage with invisible bars
where diversity reigns among ruins
of many a small world, in a cosmos,
chaotic

the scarfed and shaded actress walking her dog
hides in Central Park among the beggars
and thieves
while the number crunchers on Wall Street
deal from the bottom, unaware
of Harlem homeys, pissing up their turf
just to the North

and when the sun goes down, Broadway
comes alive with limousines and caviar
while the heroin addled hookers
come out to gambol
just a few streets south

The UN does their dirty deals
not far from where the Federal Reserve
counts our imaginary money

and then there's me
down on South Street
where the water leads away
trying to make sense of it all

life is music, I think,
for some, a five string banjo
all knee slappin, 'backer spittin

for others, Brahms, Mantovani
or a trip down Moon River
where violence, is a spilled drink

rap, rock, country or pop,
it can define, conceal, or muscle
who we are

I've used Kanye, haggard,
and even Schubert
to bluff my hole card
when the game got hot

but the truth is,
I'm just an easy saxophone
to a composition unwritten
high, then low
mournful and drawn out

just a man on a rock by the water
feeling beyond the boundaries
trying to make sense of it all
as the music bleeds