The Pen
The pen
Friend, Enemy, Training Partner, Lover, Coach and Worst Nightmare.
Why?
It runs. Even when it has no legs to stand upon, it runs.
It trips, it stumbles, it takes hold of the air and launches itself screaming into the abyss.
It laughs when half way across
the chasm it realises it has no
wings yet forces onwards
toward the ever-closening
cliff-face.
The impact shakes itself free of its own bloody face —
peels the tattered remnants of its flesh from the stone,
And Laughs and Launches itself,
Blood curdled cry of its agony lending it footholds in the foreign air.
But the air, this air,
it can no longer be called foreign,
It is not a visitation.
Look through the wreck that peeled itself off of Dover.
The tatters are not mere surface scrapes,
there are chunks missing,
those that clung on did so around
gaps in the fabric of the corporeal.
The pike, knife and spike wounds
are as nothing to the flapping
voids torn by the rock face
as the pen impaled itself upon
its own imaginary wings.
But look!
Neither pen, nor impaled, is sad —
The pen has puffed his chest with pride
and the impaled has roared his lungs clear with laughter
Laughter at the suffering
that he and pen
conspired to create
A suffering that is not mere
proof of life, but affirmation.
A suffering that hurts so much
there can be nothing but laughter —
But the laugh — tearing itself
with unknowable joy from the lungs that are holed and half-vanished;
torn out and devoured by the hungry cliff face —
This laugh
That holds it head on broken neck,
that fills its lung from empty sack
It fills itself
It expells itself
It surpasses and excells itself
It tears the wings from from In- to corporeal
It lights fires in the eyes
Forces the pump — whether it still possesses
the machinery or not
And once more
it grasps the pen, looks him in the eye
‘right lad, once more for fun’
And they charge, trip, soar, plummet and stumble
But they have won the air,
torn themselves free of mortal shoe
looked the gods in the eye
torn through Hades with nought
but a few rivulets of flesh as a parting gift
And leapt roaring into the abyss
searching for its eyes
longing to hold its gaze again
and reclaim their joyous mastery
But it shifts and flees!
Such a weakling this unknowable night when pinned upon a burning light,
laughter, ringing, roaring in his ears;
he cringes, cowers, eyes full of tears.
The void fears the Non like day fears the night
Do not gaze meekly into the abyss
tortured at the thought of how you cannot stand
Look! Hold! Laugh!
Laugh with the frivolous purity of solemn purpose
Hold his gaze
Let your heart burn true
The abyss is nothing
and in that it is all.
Let your heart burn true
Don’t waver and wander
tremble and squander
Let your heart burn true
The abyss is not destruction,
it is absence
That longs to be filled!
It is aching and craving and lonely
It needs the non-void
like in needs out in order to be.
It is and can be only that which it is given?
So why give it fear and weakness?
Why make it suffer?
If all it can be is that which you offer —
why crawl mewling, aching, lonely and terrified?
You have just proved that is all there is and can be,
you are a fool.
Laugh and it laughs with you
Cry and you’ll drown in a sea of tears that are not just your own.
But stand?
Stand in the night, let gales of misfortune just whip around,
ride the very breaking of the earth
and eternity shall be granted
For he that stands shall be stood with.
S. D. Hallett 17.02.2015
