A poem by Donny Lee Duke

Have you ever seen the field of lyrics?
They’re divine emails
to singers, songwriters, and the sunlit path.
Yah hear ‘em?
They wouldn’t mail you to hell.
They come on wings of golden charm
in a literary ear,
all of them
that define music.
How easily they come
rollin’ in a song.
I’ve sideswiped a mirror.
This just doesn’t sound right.
Force, cram, there, stars.
Oh my the lyrics,
they need a water table.

I’m about your engines of change.
I defy the world.
You hear that rock 'n roll?
It just poured in.
Even love songs lit it.
And the 60s went on
until we could hear the sound no more.
It really rolled in then.
Lyrics told us what to do:
be kind to your brother;
watch the looking glass;
we don’t need no thought control. [heard sung, Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall”]
And bands played on.
They all got out of sorts.

The sound of music [heard sung, R.E.M., variation on lyrics “You Are the Everything”]
compensates for society’s hard ways.
You know what I’m talkin’ about.
Music glows.
I don’t know how to tell you to control it.
It’s your business when to turn it off,
but don’t you want that bare reality boy,
you and the world
face to face?
You’d use that too
to come together on yourself.
Bare bottom reality,
where we find ourselves in fight,
come on let’s get out of here
to the tune of music.
Use a song to fight?
Let’s listen to reality.
Billy don’t be a hero. [heard sung by Bo Donaldson, line names song]
Thanks for calling in,
but sometimes reality’s really fucked, you know?
and you’d die if you didn’t take up arms,
you and your whole family,
a Ukraine emergency.
You, see the difference?

I’m loud enough.
I just don’t know where to begin.
I’m on sleaze mode,
and I just ego the world away,
or I’ve lost my tune
in a bucket
of melodyless words.
I don’t bring you anywhere
the skylight gets ahold of yah.
I’m pretty and all,
sometimes,
but I’m awfully small with sharks.
Today’s music, right?
I ego the moon away.
Give it a Grammy
to correct the past.
I’m on it—
a racially motivated statement.

Got a guitar,
just give it your play
in the do’s of yourself.
Music will come rollin’ off your lips
when you trouble time with words
that bring the world together
on your knee,
and you’re rockin’ it to sleep
in its ballroom,
no matter how loud it gets,
no matter how tune.
Oh you open yourself
in the rhythm of your ear.
Hear that
the light of music. [heard sung by R.E.M., “You Are the Everything”]
It’s in your neighborhood.
It’s comin’ upon yah now.
Play that song.

If you want to sing out sing out. [heard sung by Cat Stevens, line name of song]
You hear music?
Do you know how to listen?
It’s a metaphor for change.
You’ve got to get down there and do it,
make it better,
your crumble with the world.
It means so much.
Now you’re listenin’
to another radio program
than the one you usually hear.
It’s got music in it.
It’s also got love.
It doesn’t neglect you.
It tells yah how to sing.
It’s a motion on a better world,
a better you,
a better me.
The music of rebellion,
I’m talkin’ to it.
I don’t think we’d leave out our own change,
would we, “Dream On”?
Unbelievable
the way that song rocks us,
so help us look at ourselves,
rollin’ and all.
There’s a distance.
He’s fishin’ me off.
He’s right.
We can’t get at music’s purpose.
I say change,
and I’m puttin’ words on starlight.
I mean heavy
a world has deepened in music.
It gathers us
way beyond the song.

This is experimental candy.
It’s got loads behind it.
It will refashion our world if we let it.
It will get bigger than time.
It’s in your inner ear.
Play it out.
Not so much what,
what in the world—
who dat?
It’s not the Devil son.
It’s glory.
I’m not gettin’ a chair or somethin’.
I’m gettin’ all this juice
to dance my religions/relations. [two words spoken simultaneously]
Teletransport investigations,
I think we’ve just spoken easy money.
Let me see your hand.
You would have no hair on the palm
if you want to be transported right
with another.
I mean it wouldn’t be about gettin’ laid
that brings you to world union.

Okay you’ve got my song,
and I give it to yah
for free.
Can we mix music and money?
A need to get rich can’t.
Jay,
I just want to say
you ease my music.
But would I let it lead the song?
It doesn’t sing,
a laboratory
substances faces only.
Unbelievable
where we need to see the world.
It’s in our holding hands.
Without it eclipsin’ the world—
it’s not at a pot party.
Hey, you know,
can we play that again,
a thing on
making rules?
We dance here.
It’s not how we make the world.
We come together on ourselves, you know?

World understanding dim.
I got your door.
It’s so sweet it’s in the air.
It will be music,
and then you sing,
you sing the song.
You remember me.
I was so 60s.
I brought you the right music
for social revolution,
to change the world
into the peace that will change the world,
into a love that will last longer than you feelin’ it,
into a brotherhood that goes beyond race and people-kind.
Let’s make this revolution happen.
Let’s go to town on music.

Open
to your brother.
To my brother?
We need peace
to make this music happen,
to get this show on the road.
If he’s got a different opinion than you he’s your friend.
If she’s disagrees with you you still let ‘er in.
You see my catfish?
You see the food bank?
You see where we all need to improve?
This is a weird pharmacy.
You actually give your brother your time,
give your sister a shoulder to lean on,
and they disagree with you what if?
Oh my puddin’ and pie,
don’t feel bad.
Don’t get all upset.
Give them the love on your corner
without bendin’ the rules:
keeping out of opinion debate
and trying to convert one another
to what you believe in.
Opinion circles
never give up.
You have to give in.
You have to,
no matter what,
no matter who you are.

Yes,
talking that’s not listening.
After all man,
we’ve got so much work to do
gettin’ our hearing to hear past TVs
and radio poles.
We need to hear music.
We got to right now.
It’s the light of the world,
so much paper
to put that in your vision,
so much time
for you to see.

Alright music industry,
crank it out.
Who we gonna work with,
the major groups and singers?
They’re hardly listenin’
to where music reaches us
a better generation,
the pop sound
that joins reality to love.
You
are so romantic
you love the world.
It can’t be faked.
I’m singin’ it everyday,
where I play the world,
this clavicle of house,
this Earth of mine.
I can get better at.
I can improve.
One final word:
make peace within meditation the meditation begins.
God it’s beautiful.

How’d you do in your family?
Come over here.
Look’s like burnt out.
They subset got on the phone.
It’s gonna last you again.
Your family is the arrangement,
those people in front of you,
whoever they are.
There’s your boss.
Oh history of change it’s here.
Music will tell yah.
Listen.

Let’s get out of town square.
Falls
the world in,
and we’re go back to music.
Thought of giving it all away
to a registered charity,
if I ever get outta here. [three lines heard sung by Paul McCartney and Wings, “Band on the Run”]
Come on Paul let’s go.
We’ve got music to attend to.