Enter the Musician

singing, shaking that tambourine,
slapping it against her hip
closing the eyes, dipping down
dipping down, rising up, rising up,
her mouth meets the microphone
to moan out these miracles
and I stand there and sway
and sway and sway and sway.
Soul-expansion!

And what I’m doing here is
traveling around the country
that’s all I’m doing, that’s it, sometimes
circling around in a big truck with
a Vietnam veteran at the wheel
and I don’t ever want to see him again,
getting my ticket
getting on the bus,
and other times I walk around
and I put my lunch in my backpack
so I can have lunch later on
and that's it, and off the road a ways
I get sleepy but I feel like walking,
going to the tress,
going to the plains, the rivers,
the uncultivated lands where nobody goes,
to the one spot where nobody’s stood
except the daughter of an Indian Chief
a thousand years ago and ghosts
who wander the Earth
smelling trees, smelling trees.
Wild! Wild! Opening gates
being a stranger, becoming stranger
talking with ghosts by campfires
getting by, eating this, drinking that
sleeping there, stretching, picking up
moving on again- fighting, fighting,
a bloody lip, tears, jaw bashed on a rock
heat drilling the peak of my scalp
in the middle of the desert
I can’t even lay on the ground.

But one thing's for sure. I'm gonna
stab this rusty spike straight through
the heart of the government goon
that's trying to take my baby away.
I've got a baby in my arms.
I'm swaying to soothe her, shading her
from the desert sun with hunched chest.
This baby will be a musician.