Sounds of Arthritis

I’m only a philosopher because

someone’s gotta make the musicians feel seen…

and I don’t play music.

Wrote a poem once

about how I feel music in me.

Trapped in my fingers.

Joints burning

of arthritis.

My lack of instruments

made me pick up a pen.

Made me pick up this call

and start talking through an empty line.

Maybe until the pressure in my chest

subsides into singing.

I don’t think I have a voice

all that special.

Maybe my genre

hasn’t been invented yet.

Some fusion.

Rum and Coke.

Sidewalks and scripture.

A little too earnest

for the cynics.

A little too strange

for the serious people.

Or maybe there’s an accent

still forming somewhere inside me.

Maybe I’ll disappear for a while.

Find some far-out place.

Listen long enough

to start speaking differently.

Then come home

with stories mistaken for songs.

Until then,

we’ll stick to the poetry

of Pennsylvania sidewalks.

Patriotism and Popeyes.

Gas stations.

Church bells.

The smell of rain

on roads that lead nowhere else.

Music helps.

That’s what I’ve noticed.

Put the right song in your ears

and the same four corners

become a world.

Nothing changes.

Everything changes.

The setting stops mattering.

You bring something to it.

Or maybe the song does.

There’s something profound about that.

The irony is,

when the music is good enough

there’s no need to philosophize.

Just let it do its thing.

As it always has.

As we always have.

Maybe I’m the product

of music becoming self-aware.

A melody wondering

what instrument it’s being played on.

The songs already written.

The notes already moving.

We’re just busy asking

if we sound right.

Trumpets weren’t paired with drums

to sound the same.

Harmony doesn’t hide

inside a single chord.

Still we pluck at ourselves.

We all do.

It’s part of the song.

Maybe that’s what makes life catchy.

The song, I mean.