Poem: Ex nihilo

This is a poem written especially for the second edition of the Kick Out the Bottom Open Voice Poetry Reading, held the last Friday of every month at Embassy Vinyl, 352 Adams Avenue, Scranton. Sign-ups begin at 6:45 and readings begin at 7:00. Standing room only, bring your own chair. Limited to thirteen slots, which fill up fast, so show up early if you'd like to read! 

Writing is the perfect art for people without much in the way of resources. Pen and paper are desirable, and having a word processor and printer are ideal, but you can compose an epic tale or a great poem entirely in your head and carry it in your memory. You can write words in dirt with your finger - heck, Jesus did that (in an apocryphal tale which does not appear in any copies of scripture until a certain point in history, and then appears consistently, in what may have been an early bit of fanfiction; see Bart Ehrman's books for more information.) 

Writers have the unique ability to weave realities from nothing. In hearing a poem or story you may be deeply touched by the meaning, or caught up in events. You may become upset at the fate of a character, a character who never existed except in words strung together by the author, and in the image those words created in your mind. This is an amazing thing. It has always seemed to me that creators partake in some aspect of the divine in their creation, whether it is in building a material object, creating a work of art, or conceiving a child. But it is writers and poets who truly create these things from nothing, nothing more than words and sounds, immaterial things which we have had to invent a means to represent. This creation from nothing most closely mirrors the divine act of creation.

Ex nihilo

We are liars and thieves
weaving realities truer than truth
from lines pilfered from ancient epics
and last week's comic books

We steal from the gods themselves
Not, like Prometheus, something as small and simple as fire
We steal their power, claim for ourselves
their divine purview to create from nothing

We fuck with our fingers
on keyboards, or gripping pens
that inseminate paper with ink
throbbing words that penetrate brains

the smell of good cognac, served slightly warm
sharkskin suits and cigarettes rolling down trolley aisles
droplets of water that drip down thighs and cause listeners to nearly break their own arms
windshields with the stories of our lives written on them in dents and spiderwebs of cracks

These are our creations
these are our children, born of furtive trysts
and well-planned couplings
and we show them off, proud parents
knowing that ours are the cutest and the smartest and the strongest
and everyone else's are just a little bit funny-looking