With the final performance for the original line-up of Black Sabbath imminent, I was reminded I'd written a poem a couple years ago as a response to their song, "Into The Void." I remember reading the lyrics for the song and thinking, "there's a story here," but when I went to write the story, it let me know the proper presentation was as a poem.
Anyway, reread the lyrics for the song and bounce those off the bleak SF vibe (which is also quite timely, even as I wrote the poem in response to lyrics written fifty or so years ago) I've written here.
Enjoy!
Into The Void
By John Claude Smith (of course!)
Colossal ships soar
into the vast black sea of night
A baker’s dozen Drakkar dragons spitting
flames
as they tear a hole into the ebony sky
wide as the devil’s smile
Hurling toward the vast unknown
as dictated by
Newton’s third law of motion
along with
undetected distortions within the field of quantum physics
while abandoning legions deemed unworthy
Noses raised in allegiance with human avarice
(We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of Depravity)
a perception one-sided, the absence of
empathy reveals
the sluggish heartbeat of the atavistic adjudicators.
Time is the engine of space
One finally utilized in interstellar travel
(though still without pure understanding)
The first wave stops second hands on the Great
Eternal Clock
The deception lingers unconfirmed as the
ships sail onward
Galaxies surrender to their trespass
Universes succumb to the lazy pull
of wave after wave crashing shorebound
upon the abandoned beaches of Infinity
where stars blink into nonexistence
while the wasteland reconstitutes
as one with what they thought they left
behind
disgusted by those deemed subhuman
below them while their knees bend
to capitalism and insatiable appetites
bound to unwavering greed
that fuels their ill celebrated escape
But to what true purpose?
Those left behind flourish without
the cruel components of class of which to
bow
no god but Mother Earth deemed worthy
While those who race to the stars
watch as a single second eventually passes
swallowed after months of mastication
Time now a snail’s pace consideration…
What looms is the bleakest outcome ever
imagined
bellies never filled, dreams whittled to
dust
their just reward: existence by rote
the empty embrace of immortality
all goals muffled in the ears of Hope
the song that arises a harrowing cry to
anguish
breath and dreams devoured as they drift
forever
Into The Void.
And here's a photo of the boys. ;-)
