mike helm's music and so on

releasing the language

i’ll play this one largo or maybe legato
in a halting faltering jerking lurking
three-quarter time
a seventy-five percent kind of time
signature for those incomplete moments
with abundant lyric and claustrophobic rhyme
i couldn’t keep my big mouth shut if i tried
releasing the language from inside

now the very first words out of every baby’s howler
are complaints about hunger and
discomfort and light
a legitimate grievance that leaves a lasting impression
though it’s rare to hear anyone ever get the syllables quite right
why have i been beaten and turn off that glare
releasing the language into the air

tell me truth or tell me stories
spin some yarn or spread some glories
sonnetts epics nursery rhymes
paint me a scene or quote me a line
but share that language with me

now there’s nothing much new here
nothing ground-breaking or earth-shaking
just these words and chords strung
together in this particular order
and i’d like to mention at this point that there is in fact a point
not just fouling perfect silence
or making the time seem shorter
and there’s nothing you haven’t heard before
from shakespeare or strummer melville or mitchell
from dickens or dylan longfellow or lennon
coleridge or coltrane malcom x t-rex
mark twain or king james
they’re all asking you questions what do you hear
releasing the language for your ear