Daily Archives: January 10, 2010

The Big

The band that sings the Big
breaks open more often than not
spilling hope and ambition
into smaller buckets

but the band that sings The Big
is always the band I want to hear

No matter the way they sing
be it simple guitar or sample bombast
if there’s Big in the reach
I will watch as they stretch

Even if the subject matter
tends to the small
if the band sees the Big
encompassed in the detail they seize

(like a universe in a pinhead
or the history of desire in one lover’s pining
sharply defined)

I’ll gladly pray for their strength and grasp
to hold out long enough
for them to bring the Big to me

for I know the Big in me
and the band that sings the Big
that serenades me large
is my minstrel pal
The band that sings the Big
gets my voice on the chorus

The band that sings the Big
has me from the first

Pretentious or humbled before the scope
of what they tackle
I will honor any who desire
to snatch up a cosmos
to corral it in three minutes
to be overwhelmed by the struggle
to fail
to fail repeatedly
to fail utterly
and still never stop singing

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Self-Fulfillment

Such a dark and common
moment of purely human
triumph: to forget

a section of your life,
tell yourself in its place
a lie you can live with,

a lie you then come to believe
with all your heart,
one from which you take

your impetus to action,
a lie growing proud as a demon
to set you aflame

with a fading sense of its falsehood
and subsequent absolute conviction —
a lie like that is as good as Scripture,

a Gospel rock on which to build
a fortress, a slaughterhouse,
a beautiful tomb.

In the forest of your life,
you fell a tree and block your ears.
This clearing has always been here,

you tell everyone.  Always a barren spot.
See how the light glares here.
Maybe there was a fire here long ago —

in fact, you are sure of it.  You insist you were there.
Show off your burns. Use the scars
to chart your course out of the woods.

End up somewhere you never expected
as someone you aren’t, feeling
the gray rain on your ashen skin.

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