Their Music
The apparent sounds of the city
or what we imagine them to be
deceiving the naïve passer-by
burying the music of the streets
that real music that reveals the truth
silence to the average untuned ear
yet painful noise to those who want to hear
Beneath the dismal and depressing
iron trusses of the elevated trains
where no sun ever shines, nor ever will
A needle crashing silently on concrete
or in the muffled trash of things abandoned
lots, houses, storefronts, factory doors
refuges to their lonely, forgotten comrades
falling from limp hands made numb
following that whoosh of junk escaping
syringes and of air filling the emptiness
A futile euphoria filling the desperation
all searing screams of pain from voiceless souls
harmonizing with a woman’s pathetic call
‘want to party, handsome’ as she drops to her knees
You can’t hear it because you’re deaf
but it echoes her poor lost child at home
a menagerie of unspoken cries beneath
the surface of what we wish were melodic sounds
only discordant music we cannot bear
Sullen eight year olds that hardly speak
forgotten, left behind before their even born
shell shocked by the only music they know
the street music of violence and pain
the very air, every breath, pungent
threatening, filled with anxious dread
you won’t hear it but there it screams
leaving these little angels deaf and dumb
forbidden from ever being human again
Street music, the real music of the streets
like a pied piper that leads them on
never to escape their cursed fate
of birth, of geography, of time
Trapped in a world unlike ours
apart, where different rules apply
being born with the sounds of
rumbling elevated trains, sirens
shouts of anger, grief and pain
broken bottles and broken souls
from the cradle to the grave
F. Henderson
December 3, 2020
