A rundown humdrum thing

A knife was it?

Yet should it have been?

Shouldn’t it be something else, like a dagger, silvery and sharp, violently ready to go through everything farcical to reveal the hidden essence?

As if it is the real actor and all else are subjects.

With a mission of its own, deadly and subtle. Dreaming of flesh, soft fragile, supple and pliable.

It’s not of this world, mundane, life less

It’s made of magic

Defined by imagination

Sharpened by hidden appetites

It doesn’t stay concealed within its sheath

It’s ever plunged

Covered by gore

Caressing gentle substance

Safely home.



No, it was no dagger

It was only knife

It had its reason, it was available

It had immediacy, nearness

Though it was ugly,

Barely lookable, blackened and grimy

Covered in soot

With a blunted edge

And no thrilling point

But it was there

Perhaps for whittling,

Opening cans,

Unscrewing screws,

Cutting cords.

It had its uses, but none like this

It was not fit to kill the goliath

Or god

It had its uses, none like this.




A Knife is prosaic, pedestrian; it has no claim to beauty. It is quintessentially ugly

It is not revered. Its action lauded.

It doesn’t inspire, it dulls feelings, it smells of perspiration. It’s a rundown humdrum thing

Yet it was but that.

A knife, may be it was a pen knife, small with a rounded handle

With a nail mark on one side

Like a small flat fish in still waters

Not seemingly moving

But alive and present.

It has no meaning

Other than it was there

Visible and usable



Yes it was a knife

And nothing else



Note: Nothing summarizes total futility than what happened to Beckett.
I can’t approve of a knife as the final messenger of Godot. But there it was Beckett seemed to have conceded its authenticity.