Best Drumming Poems
I think we are all drummers –
of course, drum musicians know
that drumming is not just pounding
on the skins (well, vinyl these days) –
there is also, soulful brushwork, and
finessing of symbols...not everyone a crash;
drums breathe -- all parts -- from outer
shells to inner resonance; influenced
also by surface temperature, humidity
of the room, and the echos of their
wall enclosure or freedom – not so
different from the maker: our hearts
are echo-chambers...especially our
minds, the garbage in the garbage out –
we echo love or the discourse of the
environment – we are beat spirited
rhythms, shuffles and stomps of feet –
tasteful entrees and all that a desire
can eat – seeming devils at times,
that only our surrender to God can
defeat – Yes! God is a drummer: no
moving instrument of being without
its core sound – a universe of timpani,
some quite square, but really, all is
round – the universe a lively Topsy,
a swing and a shout – we leap and
twirl in time – knowing time, not
gravity, keeps us down, shuts us
in, or keep us up and highly
out. Even at my age, more apt
to honestly, sweat-fully gig, than play
under any, pretentious, perfumed
wig.
Listen to the muffled padded strumming
of hooves beating the ground with a thumping sound,
Playing out a galloping tuneful drumming,
As rider and horse become one with freedom found.
No soulful words are needed to describe that refreshing air,
A scene harmonious, of sensing flair
With natural musical reflections
And throbbing muscular pulsations
As rider and horse become one in cause,
With pounding echo's, providing the applause,
Bridling saddled ovations, to the Lord Father's Outdoors.
Red would be a snare
Green the hi hat, blue the kick
Yellow the big crash!
it's always been a mystery
why i am so moved day or night
at the sound of native drumming
when loudly my heart thumps in rhythm
hammering logic with every beat
stirring deep primal emotions
awakening dormant passion
releasing unchartered tension
setting free inner vibrations
beneath layers rising chanting
echoing way inside my head
is something more mysterious
than rumors of previous lives
they say we are meant to have lived
i ask why do i resonate
with the heart of a native teen
when riding a river by canoe
haunted by the call of the woods
enamored by nature's wild scent
the water the sun the forest
and the grey heron in full flight
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
DRUM CIRCLE
FEBRUARY 16, 2018
Tonight we talked to the earth
with our drums, our pulsating prayers
a rhythm and blues, a galloping growl,
an angry lament, a wretched outpouring
at the new Hunger Moon, at the latest mass
shooting, at a winter of despair in an amoral
era of high-tech and hate!
The Yoruba wail and the Lakota chant,
the bells on the drums and the tattooed dancer
joined with the chorus of tired social workers
and special-ed teachers, jet engine mechanics,
and the mysterious ascetic in the black turtle
neck whose shock of white hair was a bright
moral beacon in a room of the sad, of the
angry, and the mad seeking forgiveness and shelter
in the Gaian Intelligence that is host to our
souls and mothers our wounds when our arts and
our sciences can no longer explain the meaningless
violence, the one-upmanship, and the perpetually
disagreeable political declarations at the center of
our lives!
“Call Me!” She said, and the drummers grew
louder! “I said CALL ME!” she said, and we all
realized that she didn’t want praise or some fervent
demonstration through a ritual of worship, but the
heart of our hearts, the essence of our lives,
perhaps a promise to our mother to stop behaving
this way and to bathe in her waters, build circles of
stone, light our fires in the middle, and then…..
drum softly with conviction and dance with our
neighbors, reveling in the knowledge that
all we can discern is a gift from beyond,
a pulsating, breathing, nurturing anomaly
sacred, somehow, created only for us!
Trying to find
The happiness of
Trying to find
The way
They kept him on life support
I sat outside and would not move
He had suffered greatly from his heart attack
I tried to pray but I had no connection
I had an old original native drum
Could I have found a connection
To where he went
When he left his soul
It must have been that decease that almost
Wiped us out
Without you I'd be in disbelief
The answer on the face where the diamond shined
Now there is suffering in our hearts
I see the retreat the escape from this dreary city
Standing naked in the breeze
Does it mean the freedom of a dream
She behaves that way in an unreal life
Part of a force we do not see
Defending goodness
Is that the force
What has living Morphed into
A day pass from prison
For the murder of Glory
Help me believe a spirit to be true
Help me see what a miracle is supposed to be
Of spirit, of drug and a mistake or two
Along the way
The old beaten dashboard in my old beaten car,
Is my old beaten down drumming kit,
And whenever I sit at a set of red lights,
Each hand is a magic drum stick,
Recreating the moment Phil Collins kicks on,
Into the air tonight,
Onto My doorbell, Blue orchid, Jolene,
White Stripes’ hypnotic Meg White,
Then through the speakers the music takes hold,
My eyes close, I sit up on stage,
And Back in Black takes flight into the world,
And my drumming flies off in a rage,
I love air drumming in my old beaten car,
When I’m stopped at red lights on the street,
Drumming along to each song that comes on,
In a seductive spontaneous beat.
unquestioning faith
propaganda sweet like candy
follow me says the lie
Cemeteries buried with good intentions
And the Drumming Gets Louder
Knowledge is taught wisdom is not
The sweet taste of candy turns sour
When God is played like a juke box
But He can't be bought many have tried
And the Drumming Gets Louder
I wonder why for power
For the history books and a statue
I sigh and then I cry
so I can laugh at the lie
and I wonder why so many
follow me says the lie
Yet the drumming gets louder and louder
When God is played like a juke box
He can’t be bought many have tried
Out of the blue from head to toe, you are such an unexpected blow. I never saw you coming, you were on my skin a drumming. When I am happy or sad you will show up, you make my body want to jump. Now! I say it is time for you to go, good by and don't be slow.
11/8/2019
In the tree by my house,
Lived, a black rumped flameback, with its spouse.
Their oscine songs and undulating flight were my daily delight.
Oh! Today it was flicking the rear-view mirror of my car,
May be, it found another song bird inside.
Jabbing and drilling to play or may be, to fight.
Or maybe, those unique rolls and the cadence were to impress the new bride.
Whatever! Its drumming was like a song of a passerine.
Just then the carcass of its partner lay in front of my sight.
Gut-wrenching was the plight of this speechless red hooded flight.
How do I tell it, that its solitude would never subside?
Yet, its spouse is in, there inside and that’s a great respite.
17th February 2019
Drums in the distance;
Thundering booming
Echo the heartbeat
A people’s story;
Native pulse pounding.
Celebration
Of ancestral
Heritage is,
Necessary.
All one tribe;
Remember
The voices;
We are
All the,
Same.
When you listen
a plate screaming
and thus a pan in the kitchen...
It's a sign that there's a man
messing with it without
knowing how to move... oh race
more stuck up than ever
knowing nothing what to do... !
Walking downtown streets of Asheville
I could hear drums in the white wind
Despite being deserted I feel a thrill
Of creative energy hoping to thrive again
The shops full of unique crafts and goods
With store workers seemingly bored
Gentrified was the emerald neighborhood
But evidence of roots still in stores
Helene had come through full steam
Wiping away many quaint little places
Despite that people here still dream
Need for hurricane relief etched in faces
I picked up the cutest jewelry at Noir
Was impressed by the design and symbol
The artist had breast cancer, a star
Who designs shine in times not simple
And the drumming was the shop above
That sold music coffee and specialty gifts
Three men playing drums with love
Giving ambiance and silver souls a lift
I can say I survived Hurricane Hugo
And I have some sense of their loss
But we had more support than they do
If you can shop online or visit help their cause
in hired spring and naked thighs
the eternal sorrow did not go, it was living in our
memory under the gun of an unknown soldier. The
mania
had brought the overwhelming jeopardy of artificial
smiles, the swords, and ropes and different
tools of torture brew abomination, my clay
absorbs the shock, the abandonement of pain;
I reach for the icicles of veiled fire to burn
the generosity, the sacrificial amputation
of one’s own neck in service of opposition
SATISH VERMA
drums
chanting
natural
native rhythm
healing nurturing
medicine man
shamanic
drumming
truth