My Red Stylus
By John Herlihy

I
I have a stylus in my possession with which nothing can compare,
Given by an old calligrapher whose hands were weary with wear.
I was a young child when the red stylus came into my hands.
It seemed at first like a visitor who could not give me reprimand.
Alone at last with this marvelous gift, I wondered what it could do.
I had no idea that this uninvited visitor would take me to Istanbul.
It sat comfortably within my hands as if it were a prodigal brother.
Staying with me from morning to night; I could not live with another.
When the day was over and I laid down to sleep through the night,
I took my red stylus to bed with me not to let it out of my sight.

II
When you sleep with someone or something, they are a part of you,
Like the proverbial teddy bear, my stylus and I were as one, we two.
It wasn’t long before I realized precisely what the red stylus could do;
It wrote down words with meaning in scarlet red or navy blue.
Some days the stylus would laugh out some story as a merry confection
Other days it would weep like a lilting violin played to perfection
Emitting the rhythms of melancholy and sorrow nearing total despair
A sad tale about the foibles of human nature that were beyond repair.
The red stylus and the words it wrote took on a life of their own,
Taking me to New York, Paris and Shanghai, the whole world my throne.

III
The mysterious red stylus took me across the waters of vast oceans,
I mounted colossal waves that lifted me on high like magic potions.
I entered shadowy forests whose silence drew from me an inscrutable sigh.
With the scratching of the mighty stylus from dawn to dusk,
I climbed far into the forested mountains that reached up into the sky,
Their diamond-sharp peaks engraving life onto the wax tablet of heaven.
With the stylus I journeyed through the hearts of all the human emotions.
I visited envy, anger, and despair with their unyielding devotions.
Sometimes I suffered more in my imagination than I did in reality,
Trying to bring to life some element of humanity in its totality.

IV
A wealth of human emotions began to spill out onto the page,
Crying out their stories of sadness with the voice of an ancient sage.
The impulse of jealousy searched the land with envy far and wide,
Undue secrets repressed the voice of the ego with something to hide.
All the characters in the stories had their own narrative to tell,
Recreating ancient themes as though drawn from a desert well.
The oceans wave in clouds of gray; the sky wears a cloak of blue,
Trees display shades of green; the robin bleeds its breast true .
The colors of Nature’s rainbow manifest one by one their hue,
Drawn deeply from the cornucopia of Nature’s colorful brew.

V
Words poured forth a river of sound that sounded like a river.
I asked my friends to read my writing; they just began to dither,
As if being asked to listen to the sounds of wild jungle beasts.
They ran away when they heard instead the voices of little birds.
Readers unused to such noise tended to cover their unwilling ears.
Slowly they began to appreciate the work as they shed honest tears.
There were those who would pick up my writing and read for hours,
Taken by my stylus to another world having castles with towers.
My diamond stylus wrote across the heart scratching individual notes;
I sat back finally with a sigh of relief without feeling the need to gloat.

VI
The poems flow from my stylus as if from the soul of the wild;
They speak to me most eloquently with the voice of a child,
Full of primitive emotions that recreate despair and hope,
As I cling to the benevolence and mercy of the Divine Rope.
I am still on an epic journey that began many years ago,
A journey of discovery and loss that I drag behind in tow.
I continue to write with my treasured stylus from an old man,
When I began to walk after leaving the confines of my pram.
It continues to bleed in dark ink the words of a primordial bond
Filling my heart across the years with the magic of a sacred wand.