The lyrics cross over the wax surface of my mind,
Leaving the tracks of their truths, fantasies, and falsehood behind;
But also leaving that grandiloquent pure magic
That only music makes of the stuff of the storm of life,
Majestic and tragic.
The notes of music and poetic rhythms have secret lyrics of their own,
The letters of night-bright life.
Music and poetry speak the sighings of all languages--
And all non-verbal languages--
Running, rich, radiant, resplendent, resounding, rife.
Music is the maker of meanings, the revealer of realities
That surge below the choppy surface of obscuring seas;
The sealer of the sense of the unsure sequence of seconds that add
At last to a life, the light in the dark--sad, bad, mad, and glad.
Whether it be the rapid wild weaving of thunders and stars of Beethoven,
In his magnificent escapes,
Or the sugar-sweetened music of poetic sadnesses
Of Simon and Garfunkle,
Love and light that darkness drapes--
Or the searing night that burns and churns in the whirls of punk, rap,
And heavy metal--
Or any of the other names and labels that will fill the final list,
When the last dreams of stardust settle--
Presley, Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles--
Or any name or sound of rock and roll--
Classical, avant-garde, or any other stream;
Whenever music moves,
It is among the many waves from the same infinite sea of the human soul;
Whether it sings in the spirit of Pete Seeger,
Or voices the splendor of Verde,
Or challenges from the heart of Joan Baez;
As well as when life speaks and sings
In pure poetry that makes its own music
In the very structure of the substance that it says.
It is music and poetry--
All shapes and shades of all verbal and non-verbal languages lyrical--
That most mirror the dark-edgd light of life,
And most like it are a mysterious and magical miracle.

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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved