The sound of music

In New York City, the streets are filled with the sound of music.
Walking west of 5th Avenue on 46 Street, lunchtime,
the sound of Billy Joel could be heard clearly.
Same songs, same voice, same band.
But it was a different guy, with different musicians,
sounding better than the Piano Man himself probably would today.

Same spot, two weeks earlier,
bunch of guys played music without instruments.
They sang, thumped a beat, kept harmony,
with the help of a tape loop that provided backing music.
But the tape was the same guys thumping a beat,
keeping harmony, with only their mouths as instruments.

East and up a few blocks, a couple days earlier,
a larger ensemble of older guys with a woman,
entertained a lunchtime crowd with…
Jazz? Ragtime? American standards?
Perhaps – but feel-good music, definitely.
Passerby saint who came marching in,
heading west on 51 Street in no hurry,
danced to it with a big smile on his face.

Of course, Lady Gaga also graced midtowners
with her presence of a present of a performance
at Rockefeller Center Plaza earlier in the summer,
as did the window-pane rattling Irish rockers
The Script and others on the NBC Today show.

Last December, a Mexican man on guitar and woman on accordion,
sang a few songs under matching black fedoras on the F train,
collected a few dollars and hopped off at the next stop,
exchanging Christmas cheer with riders.

San Juan Hill, where Amsterdam Houses stand,
was also alive with the sound of music back in the 1960s.
Puerto Rican doo-woopers crooned in harmony for passing neighbors,
even for little boys who listened but pretended not to see.
In midtown today, only the age of the listener is different.