full

The pen, a bear in winter, No louder/
Than an open sunflower,
Its ink a quiet, patient dam,
Its power paused, deferred in motion.

In humble hands, x marks the spot
A list, a note, a name, a line, like death notes lore
It signs a card that’s passed along,
A borrowed pen, then “Yours, not yet mine.”

It sketches worlds that never were,
Gives voice to ghosts and names the brave;
It builds a plot from fragile thoughts,
And lifts the living from the grave

From “empty” pages rise whole experiences,
A love, a war, a final stand;
A book is born, a mind is scorned
All shaped by ink and passionate hands.

It seals a deal with quiet grace,
A pen exchanged, a card, a name;
In business, hands speak before
A word is said, a face, a claim.

As a gift, it marks a moment of the day,
Graduation, oath, or vow;
An heirloom passed from palm to palm,
Still warm with all the then-and-now.

Yet lifted once by firmer grip,
It bends the course of lives unseen—
A check releases months of labor,
A signature redraws the majestic scene.

With one short stroke, a law is born,
An order marches into force.
A border shifts, a cell door shuts,
A future bends its sudden course.

In courts, it carves out truth or lies,
In contracts, chains two souls as one;
Its ink can marry, free, bind, or sprate
Can crown a king, or ruin a man.

It writes the past that the world will keep,
Treaties signed and wars made still;
Resources stolen and people exploited.
Hate begets hate amplified and solves nothing,
As happenings of the past occur in cyclical occurrences,
Itself, a similitude of difference, showing up as another.
Alas, the time repeats in Declarations, charters, and names.

But turn its tip to sharpen the will,
The pen becomes a darker tool:
A threat is written, rights erased,
A name condemned, and next gen, mas/sacred

It may strike flesh in desperate hands,
A fragile weapon, close and cruel;
More often still, it wounds from afar.
Like a sentence signed, a law, a rule.

Yet leave it there, untouched, alone,
It harms no more than fallen rain.
Like petals closed at dusk, as Seinfeld speaks,
For the human heart, for the human brain.

The pen is nothing by itself—
No good, no evil, just a tool,
Like a gun, when unleashed
It blooms by those who choose to write;
It blooms by those who choose to condemn;
It blooms for those who choose justice;
It blooms by those who choose to condemn;
It blooms for those masochistically inclined.
It blooms by those doused in Schadenfreude,

A pen, a bear in winter, if left to be.

T.H.E.P.E.N