On Atwood and Fishhooks.

Imagine another world,
one that curls slowly inward on an off balance
increasingly coiled elliptical descent
toward a dwarf star flaming red
and in relative size- small,
feel the uncertainty within days filled by rays of burgundy.

Dead and inorganic
with a tightening timed existence.
Fuel, I am nothing but fuel says the dying planet.
Stand on the surface,
watch day after night the sight grow in magnitude
and the sands underfoot turn to glass.
Any reflection cast upon the planet will be ignored
as all things become only the sun
and begin to run into one mass
burning in total excitement,
the sun has no deference- for it is dying too.

We humans also have no deference,
each our own individual sun-
spiraling around each other in an inevitable helical collision of wits
and perceptions, of language and opinions.
Imagine realities different than ours,
it helps with spatial context.
Imagine lexical and syntactical differences
with its indiscernible reworking of our synapses.
Imagine nations collapsing, revolutions and alternate evolutions.

You wouldn’t,
on driving a motorized vehicle,
entertain the delusion of yourself as an automotive engineer;
so why is it that you trust your own perceptions of this reality
more than any other?
Is it because without this inborn certainty-
you are afraid,
an all-consuming fear of the unknown.
So you trust above all else the hazy outlines your brain coalesces
from the waves of sound and light that we are all submerged within,
then pontificate extraneous conclusions with absolute certainty.

I drag fishhooks through oceans empty of life
and strive under the encapsulated essence of survival
out on the desolate water.
Not for sport or victuals, but to sooth my mind
with the worn groove of a menial task and total solitude.
On finding no solace in the death and garbage
I retreat from the water to seek a place no man goes.

I croak words of scant significance,
my throat dry and cracked in a lack of language,
a desert without meaning,
a seemingly endless tirade of useless slang that hangs in a balance
and will soon be sloughed off softly
like the dead skin that accumulates in carpets.

Within the silent night I am at ease
and in my dreams Atwood smiles
through the linguistic descriptions of oppression on women
and a populace infected with the uncontrollable ability to change life
down to the most infinitesimal scale.
On waking-
I find little has changed
and am driven deranged by visions of the cultural cannibals
wearing the skin of man.

When all of the fresh water is fouled
and our species fails to attain the fuel source we need
to propel intergalactic travel,
an Ansible
or the unity that only will come with a conscious evolution of the mind; man’s true mandibles will distend
in the face of non-existence,
pushed forth on the singular beating mantra of self survival.

Not as a single epoch but as a slow movement en masse,
man will lose his language
and return to being the unconscious beast;
this will be the true Tower of Babel moment
marked only by a silencing of the mind.

Author's Note

This was written by Ben Lingemann.
Please do not plagiarize, All Rights Reserved.