Little Victories Invidious comparison is all that makes a little victory small. Don’t make me laugh, you’re bound to counter. Small is small. To which I’ll say: But you’re forgetting Blake. You know, his universal grain of sand, his endless hour. He knew, you’ll say, for us to see the spirit flea, it must expand. A tiny ghost would look ridiculous. Then I’d insist a victory’s not a flea, and naturally our talk would fall apart; but you’d applaud me on my victory. The sound of one hand clapping is grand art. Once more I’ve pierced the needle with a thread I moistened with a lick mere fancy bred.
Dan Campion is the author of Peter De Vries and Surrealism and co-editor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song, a third edition of which was issued in 2019. His poetry has appeared in Poetry, Rolling Stone, and many other magazines. A selection of his poems titled The Mirror Test will be published by MadHat Press in February 2022. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
Amethyst Review 