Harmonica

It seemed to be obvious
I was not made for this world
or any world really

for example there were doves who circled overhead
because that’s where the air was
with no trees in the way of their flight

Then an angel got meaner
held up his dirty sword between me
and their birdy delights and whimsy

I couldn’t stand seeing them
as I was a capable man born here
of immigrant parent and of Native parent

so I knocked hell out of him
and he fell sprawling over onto a dark cloud
while birds screeched and turned about

just like that Irish poet described
back at the early time of this century
with closed eyes in his head as he dreamed

of new words unheard or so he thought
used them seldom to express old world thoughts
but I digress as I must

the angel having fallen I picked up his horn
and threw it aside to pick up a harmonica
that lay discarded on the floor of the cloud

I couldn’t play a note upon it but I blew
into the holes along one side
and honked out what the angel considered blasphemy

while America bloomed behind us
a sacred song of content
the birds turned out of their circle

brought it back over the land
came at last to rest below my feet
in a land I once thought had no place for me

I was split between conqueror and
resistor to the conqueror
you see I had no arms but the ones I was born to

that and the harmonica
I stuffed that one in my shirt
I wasn’t made for this world without one

and no matter the war that is yet to come
I’ll play this one dented and set to a single key
until this world chooses to light upon me

lays its finger upside its nose
snuffs me down and uncaring
steps away

It seems obvious to me
I wasn’t made for this world
without birds in it for one thing

but the birds will return
yes they will come and they will do
their perning over a burning gyre

America comes up
below us all
and ablaze but still caring steps forward

into any world really
that is vastly different
than this one

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T