A blink measurable in milliseconds
Bathes all in red blankness and hints
At the possibility darkly tempting
Of annihilation though nothing
Can ever nothing nothing
But practically impossible does not mean unreal
For the imagination can conceive
The square root of negative one
As it can of the inexorable digits of pi
And what emotional posture
Might these imponderables demand
For we might undergo an involuntary shudder
At the thought of mere nothingness or less
Or of great infinity that teases out of thought
Anxiety induced by an imaginary fact
Or a factual figment
Assist me Muse nurturing mother
Provider of sustenance bodily intellectual and creative
Say first what source our pleasures our pains
Our drives for nutriment for reproduction for expression
Our grim dejection our poetic frenzy
We know the source of the greatest joy
The holy communion of family and friends
But say most for thou knowest
Whence the advent of witless terror
For while the tiger
That the trainwreck disgorges
Gives an object to our fear
With timestamp heading and coordinates
And we mobilize the forces required to subdue it
For we have it in our crosshairs
While that other tiger
Which burns in the forest of the night
Resists such easy crucifixion
And we rage against the injustice of reversal
For we enjoyed briefly a moment of hope
What time we said ahead ahead I see a light
But with what sudden supernatural horror
Do we gaze into the face
Of the tiger alive with flame
Impossible upon earthly frame
And yet a factual presence in the mind
And sharable with other minds across centuries
Through the miracle of text
The sacrament of image
Disorientation congealing into nightmare
But our companion soothing speaks
See what you’re looking at
It is but an animal friend
Cool bluey green
Padding to left
Not facing you in threatening confrontation
Alter eye to alter all
But though it be the last thing we might want
How often do our steps resistless lead us
Into that dreadful forest where we stumble again in the darkness
Again fallen into the fearful mood of shadow
The Dis of deep dejection
Only to be betrayed again by that meretricious light
And threatened by that imaginary tiger
Conflict internal bursting into birth
So you can replicate this experience if you want to
Replicate not repeat
For repetition is no more than perfection is
A thing in the phenomenal part of the world
The second happen somewhat differs from the first or the third
The eternal return of the same a psychological quirk
But no less factual for that
And certainly not unthinkable in a multiplicity of universes