Awakening
I once worked with a guy
who wanted to be a songwriter
he knew I’d done some recording
had even been on the radio
He said he needed more classes…
in lyric structure
in composition
in theory
I thought…
No, you need to
wander the destroyed
city streets
See the suffering
the beauty
the immeasurable
madness of it all
Have your heart torn-out
tossed to the wolves
and then watch it devoured
in your final dying moment
There will be your song
The theory
the composition
the structure
will matter little then
But you will have
found something
beyond measure
Let your seared soul
sing to the cosmos
The gods will delight
in the beauty
of your song
Of your awakening
Steven Meloan has written for Wired, the Huffington Post, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly. His fiction has appeared in SOMA Magazine, the Sonoma Valley Sun, Lummox Press, and Roadside Press, as well as at Litquake, Quiet Lightning, Library Girl, The Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading series, and other literary events. His short fiction collection, St. James Infirmary, was released in 2023 on Roadside Press, and a collaboration collection with his brother Michael, The Kind the Pharaohs Try, was released in 2024 on Naked Light Press. He is a recovered software developer, and a former busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.
