Charles Harmon

I Hear the Sound of America Singing

We’ve paid the dues singing the pandemic blues

but as summer and the country and the world open up

we’re starting to change our tune, sing a happier song.

Trying to get some sleep in a noisy city I set up the

white noise generator in my air-conditioned hotel room

looking out on Central Park on the 4th of July—insomnia!

Three days without sleep, jet lagged up the yin yang,

flying back and forth thru 12 time zones on cruise control

I give up and step onto the sidewalk for a morning walk.

I want to hear the full spectrum of myriad sounds, I want

the crack of a baseball bat, I want to hear the bark of the

ice cream vendor, hot dog carts, fast bagels and pizza pie

I want to hear the mellifluous cacophony of hundreds of

languages learning the vocabulary of freedom, the clip clop

of horses’ hooves on 5th Avenue, sheer noise of Times Square

and 42nd Street where Broadway and Uptown and Downtown

meet I run into Clive Davis who tells me he’s throwing a new

concert party for everybody in the universe and the Big Apple,

he invites me and hands me a hundred tickets and asks me to invite

a hundred poet friends so we can fill the park, for there’s gonna be

some big stars for a really big show, a monster show to welcome the

world back from the lockdown to the city that never sleeps and keeps

on trucking with the full spectrum of local color and imported variants.

I think back to a beautiful blue sky in September of 2001 when the

twin towers were knocked down by airplanes and telephones and

computers and jet fuel and internet all of our own invention, the

products of freedom and free thought; I remember the horrible noise

of the crash, the sound of thousands choking on the smoke and the dust,

but I believe we are more than that, that people came here and still come

seeking freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of action, freedom of choice.

And what can be more free than writing a poem and sharing it with the crowd?

So the concert of the Century begins with the Beach Boys, “Good Vibrations,”

followed by a Spectrum of poets, firstly “Jackie Robinsong” reciting

haiku and tanka of loves lost and found. Next up the Beatles with “Yesterday”

and “Let It Be,” followed by GT “Good Trouble” and his ode, “I Gotta Be Free.”

Next up Aretha, in hologram spirit at least, earning a lot of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,”

then poet Alicia, from the Greek, “Alethia,” meaning “Truth,” reciting her poem

“R-E-S-P-E-T-O,” getting enormous respect from the audience for telling truth.

Lionel and the Commodores with Michael Jackson partying “All Night Long”

with “Billie Jean” and “Thriller,” were followed by Calokie and Kingfisher

and other bands and artists and singers and poets too many to mention.

The point everybody made was “We Gotta Be Free!” Yeah! You get the idea…