A Good Pen

Slick precision,

Ink rolls despite indecision.

Cross-marks, hash-marks,

slashes, dashes,

dead-ends abandoned,

in hopes that Providence

will deliver a satisfying string

of scribbled symbols:

signifying furious sounds,

harmonic mouth noise,

maybe even thoughts!

(If we’re lucky.)

Words flow,

But meaning?

God only knows.

Cosmic processes coalesce:

the gears of time,

the spheres of mass,

the birds, the bees,

the trees, and all things now

and hereafter.

But even this odd process

is given permission

amidst the galactic flurry.

Dark secretions stain the paper.

no consequence, no afterthought

that can be blotted out

except by violent scratching erasure.

A good pen is hard to find.

Harder still, a mad mind

to guide it.