Drumming

Bang the drum, first on a quiet night

so you have no excuse not to feel the vibrations.

Let them swim and spill echos into the black sea

so you’re not so lonely, so uninspired.

Develop your own rhythm and fight to keep it pulsing,

until thick calluses spew across your thumbs

and the soft arches of your forefingers.

Bang the drum on the cracked pavement

below the silent houses.

Get the beat to ease into the emotions

of those who own the buildings,

so they move off of their plastic furniture

to gaze down at your musical exertion.

If they leave thumbprints on their windows,

almost always closed,

it only means you reached them,

and if they seem angry and engaged

then it means that they were listening.

The drum you beat is the backbone

of the day, keeping our feet in constant motion.

If you don’t learn to keep it up,

we’ll all die down and become doleful,

dead weight leaving vacancy in the hollow world.

When to the stars refuse to burn

because there is no meaning,

then the thumb prints will dry,

as the occupants vacate their portals

to lose a little bit of themselves purposefully as they sleep.

So understand your instrument,

as the quaking keeps us all alive.

Bang the drum, honest, and you will compose our future.