Oh, did I mention that I used to write a lot of poems about Philly?
Eli Price’s Fountain
Listening to the city, I perch myself
on my stand. Chained like Prometheus
by awe to this concrete geyser.
The city attacks me like an eagle,
yet sets me free with a swing of its sonic hammer:
John Henry—being of noise, static, music.
City spreads out before me
like an orchestra I conduct.
Steps of a million feet tap out a cadence for John’s blows
that lay rhythm out like the beat of a bass drum heart.
Bullets strike a snare roll while
Eli’s dream trickles out—a flute song.
The motion of the masses
staggers into a cello’s moan.
The orchestra shifts to my right
to an R&B song as a white-haired
black man sings with all the passion
of a gospel choir after it has made love to a swinging jazz band.
The singer silenced…
A siren breaks ht tempo
like a bottle of Boone’s on a brick wall.
And I know somewhere a mother is screaming out
like an electric guitar riff on WMMR.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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