Street Musicians
Street Musicians - meaning Summary
Split Identities on the Street
Two intertwined selves are traced through decaying streets and suburban displacement. One self has died; the other's identity persists as habit and memory, observing eviction, autumnal decline, and finally mutual forgetting. The speaker cradles a tired violin and recalls neglected music, bodily traces, and origins. The poem links personal fracture, loss, and the physical residues—trash, excrement, music—used to make sense of identity, time, and mortality.
Read Complete AnalysesOne died, and the soul was wrenched out Of the other in life, who, walking the streets Wrapped in an identity like a coat, sees on and on The same corners, volumetrics, shadows Under trees. Farther than anyone was ever Called, through increasingly suburban airs And ways, with autumn falling over everything: The plush leaves the chattels in barrels Of an obscure family being evicted Into the way it was, and is. The other beached Glimpses of what the other was up to: Revelations at last. So they grew to hate and forget each other. So I cradle this average violin that knows Only forgotten showtunes, but argues The possibility of free declamation anchored To a dull refrain, the year turning over on itself In November, with the spaces among the days More literal, the meat more visible on the bone. Our question of a place of origin hangs Like smoke: how we picnicked in pine forests, In coves with the water always seeping up, and left Our trash, sperm and excrement everywhere, smeared On the landscape, to make of us what we could.
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