the paper

by Max Quayle
Okay, I get it…

I just sit, hear, and pour me out onto you

Onto you, across you, through you, into you
You’ve never seen one just like me
I’m one that you have yet to see: me.
What would you be if I poured me onto thee?
Would you see, things just like me, would you be, me?

So, I sit, hear, and write, is this all right,

Or should it be more like my sight…
From side to side and front to rear,
Which reminds me, do you hear?
There are so few of me and so many of you –
Flat and white, stacks, pieces, never too few

What about you?

What am I? I was once small, flat white

Now I am instant, now I reproduce quickly
Send me through the air, or down the line
Paste, cut, search, why, even browse me.

To me you are delible, optional, a font

I have seen many like you, lines and signs
You pour yourself onto me and I can not forget
I can be lost but I never lose, you

A facsimile, retro-graphic, inert

But as vehicles go, I move with them
No powers have I, and little space
Confide in me and I will bear it…

We are…

Together we shape the world, set men free and bind their tongues
Grab hold of nations; guide the hapless, smoke in their lungs…

Light to the nations, gilt edged sword,

Sheath of ruin, the hangman’s cord...
Born to write, Our souls alight…
I