3:14am
By: Ryan Beodeker
I
have walked in the forever darkness. Seen atrocities, unshielded and
unprotected as the mutagenic augmenters poison the water supply. The
trash builds up and the men move it to the barges. Once there, the ships
go on and on for ages, the sight of humanities deformed plastic mounds
takes over the landmass, a sea of discarded cellphones and iPods. The
t-shirts made by sweatshop hands stained with the tears of youth taken
too early. One more bowl of rice here, another missing limb there,
sweetheart.
Thinking on cities, the centers of our society. Where the hip cat roams looking for the green; to make the mind ease.
Come down off the pills and the sugar, the processed fat that
clogs the beating
heart.
Hearts can’t love when they can’t beat.
Coca-Cola the devil’s drink; the hyper-deficit, over-active,
cracked-out kid. Shaking and dancing. Moving to his own beat walking
down the street. The eyes. Societies eyes stare out from veiled glances.
An “Oh, I shouldn’t have glanced for that long” exchange between a
passing boy and a group of girls. Everywhere you go the looks over the
shoulder, a cold distance as if they aren’t there at all.
Ease the mind.
We
were talking about the ships that contain the, our garbage. The 50 tons
of filth, pardon me, fucking filth they pulled out of the pacific. The
ocean blue. Now a garbled mess full of coffee grounds, and tv guides.
The best of American culture tossed away. The stink must be rancid. I
just imagine standing on the sandy shores at the feet of the golden gate
bridge. A thick morning fog has just begun to depart. The sun is
piercing through the mist and rays of light are beginning to seep
through the clouds and are touching the bridge as if by magic. The blue
water of the pacific slowly becomes visible and there in the distance
among the majestic beauty of nature, the greens, blues, the hues, the
taste of crisp clean fresh air that is only found in nature. The air
that if you could bottle it and sell it people would buy it, kinda air.
The air that I breathed in the forest back behind my childhood home,
back by the fifty acres of farm land right next to that forest. Air that
you only find in nature tainted by the rancid smell of fifty tons of
human filth.
Now some would become sad or downtrodden by
the notion of nature ruined! But no, the fifty tons of human waste in
the beauty of the pacific is art. Modern glorious our final station on
planet Earth.
The human race to slowly waste everything that we touch slowly wants to take hold. I think on for a second that such a
dismal prediction can bring no
satisfaction and
devise to
hypothesis that something else
might arise.
Possibility or better yet probability that we as a nation of Americans
survive is slightly proportionate to whether or not we choose to think.
If we think we live, if we believe we die.
TRUTH!
If we think we live, if we believe we die. Fundamental truth.
I’ve got to go on and probably on, about the damned green squiggly
line. If this is ever to be read or heard or seen or spoke or joked or
tossed out as shit or passed around for a laugh or for a smile or for a
cry or for a drink whatever the case I want you to think on me sitting
up at a quarter past three typing away. With each new sentence and as I
go back and read I can’t help but see all the grammatical errors there
have been, maybe if one day this were to be published all of those
beautiful lines would be gone. You see my failure at grammar is a
product of my raising. See in only fifth grade did I receive lesson, on
nouns, and verbs, and tenses present-past. But really, truly, I forgot
it all fast. But without my green lines, well I’m less who I am. Without
my green lines I’m less of the man who rides on red cobble to songs
from the past, going to see a few men bout some grass.
There is a tornado of words, though tornado isn’t the best way to describe it. A slow twister, a spinning realm of black
Times New Roman size
12 words engulfing me. They all shout to be caught, they are like
children, in the schools of our children, where sometimes the unnoticed
happens far too much. Where the hand of the brutes, and the tongue of
the wicked spin lies and tails of unbelievable sorrow.
There
is a castle by the rivers head. There in that famed
land many years ago a band of foundlings made their way. Struggling.
Life is a struggle. After years of friendship and good will, the
foundlings became divided and though neither side was
inherently evil, neither side was
good.
I
will respond, recollect and then proceed to go on. It must first be
said, and then later read that since the time in the castle long ago in a
land most likely forgotten, well, we’ve all moved on. Grown wings and
took flight never to return again.
Though a flock may suffer losses, they are never gone for long.
The
foundlings split that is what is certain and their story only finds
merit in that it speaks on us, on all of us. Who we are and how we
become the people who we see when we brush our teeth in the mornings.
Many battles were waged and after nearly a decade of war, friends lost.
The scars running far deeper than the foundlings ever would say. There
are two outcomes, the first side of the foundlings sought power and
respect, they were ambitious and saw all that they craved come to their
feet. The second sought the same but found ‘long the venture friendship
and companionship, though never reaching their aims. Though the first
only knows the companionship of a few, the second has friends far from
few. To be ambitious and win, or lose and be loved? Though which do you
choose, glory or love? The warmth of power, or a hug from a friend?
Vengeance
is poison. To seek, to aim, to conspire, to plot, to revenge is
something one should not. At three forty-seven we speak on the second
great war.
There needs to be a dark
romantic symphony playing, perhaps something out of Swan Lake. The
chords: minor, diminished, augmented, tri-tone, chromatic scale, key
change, timpani drum. For revenge, a black mist swirls around, a fleet
of brooms tossing their buckets of water. Creating a maelstrom, eating
everything around. Nothing escapes the black-hole.
Always remember nothing escapes
the black-hole.
Humanity must, the we shoulds, groupings of words slapped together. The wish it was this or that ways. Sadness is
our inability
to accept that we can
not control. Release and
be free.
Ease the mind. The monster mash, blast off time. A little church
converted theater, stretch driveway paved from street to cemetery.
Scruffy woods, weeds, and vagrants. Anthills and two white men screaming
and shouting over and over again. A rinse wash repeat cycle of complete
human mishap. Conducted by God, the cruel science experiment, pits the
lowly stoner against the ailing cancer patient! They’ll be tears!
They’ll be laughs! They’ll be heartfelt moments! Coming soon to a TV
near you type ordeal that never gets old.
What’s really
been said in the now thirteen hundred and twenty words? Have I said
anything? Can I talk to you my reader? Do you exist outside my head? Can
you dig it my man? I don’t know if you’re real. Are you real, is that
possible for you to exist in my current world? Even if you do exist, my
reader or maybe even readers, do you feel the flow? Can you taste the
rainbow? Do you see the vibrations the colorful hand clenching
amusements? A lay in the dew covered grass naked and roll around under
the stars night sky. You, the fresh clean crisp air, the awe of the
night sky, beer pong table backyard shenanigans. Bare foot running
through the canopied dark unlit street, each pair of headlights most
certainly the police officer that will arrest you. Make you an
institutional man. The I’ve been working on the railroad all the live
long day type guy from a nineteen forties jail. A deep south chain gang,
with a man wearing sun glasses riding a horse with a shotgun aimed
right at your nuts.
Ease your mind.
I
didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. Had long hair for nearly ten
years and after it was gone the person I had known was gone from the
mirror. A startling revelation. The face I want to make is sorta out of a
painting whose name I don’t know. Funny. It’s a face, not cartoon, nor
impressionistic in anyway; more important the face is letting out what
looks like a scream, a howl? Perhaps that’s the name of the painting,
howl? The poor sod’s hands raised to its gender neutral ears, the
painting head has no hair, no distinguishing gender features, its colors
are a plethora of oranges and blacks, possible shades of what I’d
describe as an ugly pale color that poses as skin tone. The only fact of
the painting I see is that it shows pain. It demonstrates suffering of a
nature unknown to most of us. It brings us to a dark place of human
emotion, of inner-turmoil, of the great war to bury down our deepest
desires.
Ease the mind.
For Daniel, four twenty
three. Sixteen years a person known, does a friend make. Christmas time
thoughts, an aroma of cookies, some slightly burnt as is the way in many
homes. The faintest smell of alcohol on the breath of most adults. The
holidays with greens, reds, and gingerbread houses; of course warm coco
in bed. That is the only real joy that truly describes that of having
one good friend, the joy of a child waking up on Christmas and racing
from bed, to find all of the presents under his tree that glee is the
love for true friends.
Possibly out of the realm of
coherent readable understandable comprehendible enjoyable people
thought. If so, above or below? Do you fly in the realm of the
eccentric, the land of houses with cows, dead relative ash’s in bottles
of whiskey hidden in closets, from dixy cups filled with gin and even
after breast cancer, skin cancer, and lung cancer still smoking a pack a
day. Or have you fallen to the extreme level of mental, the lowest of
the low, insane. No longer coherent, just babbled nonsense. To not be
interpreted, to not be on talk shows, to not be at book signings, never
tour the country, never win awards. Discredited, unrespected, and most
certainly unknown and unheard of. The words trail on down a spiral
staircase of confusion. Each step marked with a word, and as I proceed
down them I understand as if by some hidden context clue that the words
are derogatory but yet I cannot even begin to get my mouth to form the
necessary shapes. The sounds of the words are too complex and proving
their point lead me further into my own confusions, missteps, and
illusions.
The leader of the foundlings is there. I am
there. We all are there. None of us are sure where we are, but we have
an understanding of each other. We have no real purpose, but in that we
have an ability to define ourselves by whatever we chose. Without the
fantasy of afterlife, the illusion of morality, there is only the choice
as what do we do to define ourselves. Our actions, inactions,
reactions, define us. Purpose comes from an understanding of our
travels. We find our meaning in adventures with a friend, a kiss with a
lover, a meal with a son, and a goodbye in the rain. 3:14am, on a
Saturday.
