What Rough Beast | Poem for December 12, 2019

Jared Pearce
Praise Band

I meant to play the guitar
last night, but instead read
the Koran, the verses
making their own song
thrum in me so someplace
that was me and not me
began to sing along,
the bass note of gratitude
and the tricky melody
of treble-clef cheerfulness.

I began to clap and shout,
happy as a tambourine
in the strict staves of commandment,
the fierce signature of covenant.

Jared Pearce is the author of The Annotated Murder of One (Aubade Publishing, 2018). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Coachella Review, Xavier Review, Breadcrumbs, BlazeVOX, and Panoplyzine, among other journals.  Online at jaredpearcepoetry.weebly.com.

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