This is probably the oldest thing I’ll be posting here. I wrote it as a young whippersnapper all the way back in August 2017, but have reworked it a bit since. ~ GDH
Imagine a man with a featureless face,
Who is born to no one,
In a meaningless place,
Where there isn’t a sun,
Nor a solitary trace
Of a creature he might share the space with.
Imagine the man never learnt anything,
As he never was taught,
And had no upbringing.
It’s more like he was caught,
Someone pulled off his wings,
Now he feels out his world through his fingers.
Imagine it’s easy to picture him there –
See him sat on a stone,
Since he hasn’t a chair!
He is all on his own,
But his face is so bare,
That you can’t seem to find yourself caring.
Imagine that having no eyes does not mean
That the man cannot see;
For his mind often dreams,
But his life is so free
From idea, thought, or theme,
What on earth does he manage to dream of?
Imagine he dreams of a song to be sung,
And he wakes with a start,
But he hasn’t a tongue,
There’s a pain in his heart,
But the pain’s just begun,
As his stomach complains of a hunger.
Imagine he goes for a walk, but he slips,
So he falls to the ground,
And he fractures his hip.
Since there’s no one around,
There’s no hospital trip;
From now on he is tragically crippled.
Imagine he hobbles along with a stick,
And encounters a rose,
Which he ventures to pick,
But he hasn’t a nose,
And the thorns only prick.
Now the sickness inside him is thickening.
Imagine he’s dying for water to sip
And he suddenly sprouts
His own fresh pair of lips,
Now he’s able to shout,
And he dances and skips,
As he prances straight into a river.
Imagine he’s crying and thrashing his limbs,
And the current is swift,
And of course, he can’t swim,
So he’s carried adrift,
And he’s dragged deeper in,
And by rocks and sharp teeth, badly injured.
Imagine he washes up on a strange shore,
And he wonders if this isle
Might offer him more,
So he wanders for miles,
With no stick for support,
Till the thought is entirely aborted.
Imagine he actually isn’t alone,
And there’s voices at night,
And he hears spirits moan,
And he’s nauseous with fright,
And he’s anxious to know
Why his life’s so incomparably blighted.
Imagine he wakes and is very surprised
To discover that, overnight,
He has grown eyes,
But the one thing in sight
Is a rose that has died,
And his agony can’t be abided.
Imagine he gets too depressed to press on,
So he fashions a noose,
But he fashions it wrong,
So the noose is too loose,
And the fall is too strong,
Now he’s paralysed from the neck onwards.
Imagine him lying there broken and beat,
Now he can’t even cry,
Now he’s nothing but meat,
So he stares at the sky,
And it mocks his defeat,
Sending lightning and rain down to greet him.
“Who was it that made me, predestined to fail?
I did not choose this life,
The noose is no avail,
I was born unto strife,
Now I lie sick and frail.
And what was the point of my sad little tale?”
Imagine there comes then a voice from on high,
A shrill voice, and giggling,
That fills the whole sky,
With a tone so belittling,
So hatefully wry,
That it makes two black holes of his eyeballs.
“I mean you to suffer, my meaningless friend!
All your failure’s designed!
See these lines that I’ve penned!
There is nothing I find
More delicious than when
You succumb to the traps I engender.
O meaningless man, you are nothing to me!
I create your bleak world!
You live within my dream!
I invent you with words,
I give you misery,
And deny you all purpose and meaning.”
Imagine a man with a featureless face,
Who is born to no one,
In a meaningless place,
Where there isn’t a sun,
Nor a solitary trace
Of a creature he might share the space with.
