a poem by Jason Ryberg (2 of 2)

PSALM #49, FROM THE BOOK OF MEAN AND EVIL TRUTHS

One day,
sooner or later,

you will begin to see it:

a memo from the main office,
appearing, intermittently,
in the classifieds,

on billboards next to highways,

subliminal transmissions
insinuated into the continuum
of prime-time television
and late-night radio programming,

as public service announcements
between infomercials
at 3AM;

"please find something constructive
to occupy your time."

Street cleaners and heads of state,
drunken painters, relocated witnesses
and wizened philosophs,
they'll all confirm the urgency
of these instructions.

For they too have seen
(if but in their magically realistic dreams, at least),
the Cosmic Steel-Toed Boot
come swinging.

They know,
that should you maintain
your current state of inaction,
your current holding pattern of bad faith,
one day, with a long, running start
and supreme universal indifference,
your sweet ass will surely be kicked
right out of the world.

No, not into the void or the hereafter, exactly,
not prison or the escape velocity
necessary to achieve a truly perfect madness
(or even the de-classification
of the underclass)

but a fate far worse,
from which few ever
manage to dig themselves out,

like the final scene from one of those
bleak, existential Swedish dirges
or French train wrecks of a movie,
forever repeating itself
again
and again
and again;

a rickety folding table
at the Great Feast in the grand
dining hall of the Immortals.
And there you are, at the crosshairs of it all;

just a random set of coordinates
and statistics situated somewhere
between puberty and the grave,

a plate full of cold scraps
and a dumb look on your face.

And all the booze is gone
and all the lights are out
(except for one dirty bulb above the sink).

And everyone else
has paired (and even tripled) up
and gone to bed.

And the walls

are

thin.

© by Jason Ryberg
 
Gutter Eloquence Magazine ~ Issue #6 ~ November 2009    previous poem     return to top