There's a Brass Band on Main Street

IT'LL HAPPEN ANYWAY

1.
Whether you like it or not
whether it entered your mind
as thought, dream, prophecy
unshakeable shard of memory
jabbing at you like migraine
o how you hate the one truth you've ever known
"Everything must go!"

2
I'm David and I'm a chronic dualist
so admitting to a higher power
has changed my life very little
in the scheming of things against me.

3
As a gunslinger you beat Budddha to the draw everytime
As a bodhisattva you refuse a blindfold and a cigarette
and serenade the assassain with a scrimshaw harmonica.
The last sound you ever hear you'd swear was "Home Sweet Home."

4
History says you died playing "Turkey in the Straw."
But you always thought history was the longest road
between two points a moving target to all but God.

5
Wither thou goest I goest to
Whither thou ghost I ghost too.

6
Two is my lucky number.
It must be
because I keep running into you.

7
The eyes sockets of the dead
make ideal flower pots
no greater green than Flanders Field
today every unmarked grave
belongs to Mozart

8
It took Pearl Harbor to make him realize there is hell.
It took a glint of light off Virginia dock
ten years after
to tame the flames to dim tapered throb
of everlasting light
you can read by
Sears catalog\from which to order
plough, flour, gingham and bible

9
Watching the Christians undress for rapture
you count 10 billion crib deaths
for the baby Jesus
bent on spawning
despite the upfalls fight
with worse odds
that those of salmon
flailing in the throes of re-
incarnation.

10
Don't worry
it'll happen anyway
the point of all this
safely disgorged from
mouths hungry for
"birth breath and bread."

--David Federman, Narberth, Memorial Day, May 27, 2008