Terror Poem by Patrick Dennis

That Korean man yesterday the terrorists beheaded
endured a terrible dread. And I, a being in hindsight,
live it today through the black letter and ask:
How can I help his horror
and tame his mind's pivot-rupturing torment?
- - - - - - - - - - -
Cleave, I pray backwards,
cleave to Reality and know peace - know that a severed head
is too quick for pain. Think back to when
you gathered your courage and did the dreaded thing you could not do;
and to how, in the instant before its execution, all fears vanished
and a calm flowed
like the equipoise of eternity on the knife-edge of being.

That calm you knew then you will know again -
know again I pray as the fledge of Real.
But, My God! My prayers for you spring a retreat to my own fears:
I tremble for you, Blood Brother. I grope for a hard handle
and grasp a phantasm. Prayers fail.

Go forth then, since it is unavoidable
go forth through dread and terror
through the ineffable stress to where even they must fail
in the dumb numbness of predeath.