may 28th 2023 - a day at the races 06 - star finality

[skonen_blades]

There's an event called A Day at the Races where poets go to the horse races and they each pick a horse name at random from each of the seven races and then use that name as a prompt for a poem. At the end of the day, we read out the 'winning' poem from each race and then whatever other poems we think turned out pretty good. It's a fun day.

This is poem 06 from race 06 and my horse's name was Star Finality. It got me thinking about the terminology we use for fame and how the life cycle of a star might have a similarity to an artist's career.

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The big bang breakout role
The number one single after years of obscurity

The life of touring, of excess
This, the life cycle of a star,
is not a cycle
It’s a parabola
A trajectory with an impact at the end
like an artillery shell

The supernova of success
shedding so much light and fury,
sound and sweat

The thing about stars is that light moves too fast
Stars die a long time before we see them go out
Not counting the ones we wish on as they fall

A star’s finality
isn’t the same grave finish line for the rest of us

It’s a collapse into something that sucks in light
Hungry for those with ambition and potential
Waiting for them to blow up on the star charts

To flare their energy
into the cold
uncaring
void




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