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Britten, Wilson, and a poem by Paul Hostovsky
One Ambition by Paul Hostovsky
All I ever really wanted
was to whistle with my fingers—
I knew I would never
be the one up on stage
blowing everybody away
with beauty, brilliance, virtuosity…
But to be the lightning
inside the thunderous applause,
to have the audacity
and the manual dexterity
to make a siren screeching
through a dark auditorium,
to be the killer hawk
in all that parroting, pattering rain,
to be, finally, the very best at praise—
now that was something
I thought that if I gave my life to
I might attain.
From his newly released collection of poems, “Is That What That Is“, published by FutureCycle Press, 2017.