SHOCK’s resident poet Nigel Parkin composes an ode to IT’s killer clown, Pennywise.
Yesterday’s first glimpse of Pennywise took me back thirty years to the beginning of King’s great book, to ‘The Shadow Before’. So here, looming out of the darkness of the years, with its smiling, strangely child-like face, is a reflection on new beginnings. Two sonnets. 28 lines. One line, as it happens, for every year that passes in the action of the book from the beginning of the terror to the end…that end of course being a dream of being a child again, a realization that this terror-filled life is a wheel. As this new picture thrillingly testifies, the IT of our fears never really disappears…and we wouldn’t really want it to, would we?
Pennywise
You’ve never quite forgotten me, have you?
And yet I know I come as a surprise.
You didn’t know the next time you saw me
I would seem so immediate, so very
Close. Thirty long years have passed since I first
Spoke to you, in a voice you thought you knew.
You look older. You might have expected
Me to do the same but fear does not age.
That’s why when you look closely you can see
A child in my face. You know that child well.
You understand the darkness around me.
It’s full of all your worst imaginings.
You thought you had grown up but now you see
You’re still that child, caught in the rain, screaming.
Lean in closer. Breathe in. What can you smell?
Dying leaves in the damp autumn twilight?
This is the season for the sad circus,
With its pathetic cast of characters,
Lions who have lost all dignity, small
Clowns with their pale faces and bright balloons,
Both with hunger and anger in their eyes,
Both with teeth ready to bite, crush and tear.
But hey! This is the circus! We love it!
Ain’t that right? Now you say, ‘I sure do!’ Yes!
That’s very good! We’re back where we started –
Me offering fun, you all nervous but
Excited, unable to resist me.
You know what, friend? This time I’m here to stay.
