Invocation [Neal Stephenson]

DapperGent

This poem entitled Invocation appears (as an invocation) at the start of Neal Stephenson's latest novel Quicksilver.

I think anyone who has sat for hours trying to write something worthwhile would enjoy it.

Anyways I liked it:

Invocation

State your intentions, Muse. I know you're there.
Dead bards who pined for you have said
You're bright as flame, but fickle as the air.
My pen and I, submerged in liquid shade,
Much dark can spread, on days and over reams
But without you, no radiance can shed.
Why rustle in the dark, when fledged with fire?
Craze the night with flails of light. Reave
Your turbid shroud. Bestow what I require.


But you're not in the dark. I do believe
I swim, like squid, in clouds of my own make,
To you, offensive. To us both, opaque.
What's constituted so, only a pen
Can penetrate. I have one here; let's go.

Mystic Fibrosis

As you can see, it's been in my sig for a while