Triumph In The Battle Over Nick Drake

As if there were not other options
by the score to choose from,
the overnight radio’s playing Nick Drake
at exactly 2:04 AM when I awaken
thinking about darker things.

Although I like Nick Drake’s music
I refuse to let him do my work for me.
I’m not going to contemplate desperation
and spiritual desertion while envying
his fingerstyle technique, because

I always end up pissed and reaching
for a guitar and after I’m still desperate
but looking toward getting that tuning right 
tomorrow, and so much for that.  So let it 
not be Nick Drake.  Let it instead be

Jackie DeShannon’s “Put A Little Love
In Your Heart.”  God, yes.  That works
perfectly.  I start picturing Iggy Pop
singing it all Morrison-spit-take gruff
and no one believing

a word of that song ever again. Chase that with
ABBA or something — here, let me
get the dial — candied oldies
of a different stripe.  Perfect music
for the darkest hours  — because if you actually sing

of despair, you know,
if you can hold its lines
and wrangle it into song,
what you get is not in fact despair.
What you get is called, instead, “triumph.”