The Epic of Things

I Introduction
Life is a run-on sentence. It has nouns, determiners, its climax the verb. It commas and it colons, and it always must period.

But a period is only the symbol of a recurring end- a door that swings open, closed, and everywhere in between. Life may rest before, after, around this solely fixed point.

We live each word, each phrase through time. Each action has its day, each preposition has its hour. Years go by without a thought, decades become crumpled memories. Time spans dreamily into eternity, yet each man knows his period lies ahead. Words from lips pass effortlessly like images from the mind pass unheard. They bob to and fro, floating on the pages of memory.

Time is both the holding pen and the eraser for these. Thousands of these points exist endlessly like stars in a galaxy, each a crux for another life, each a machine for another thought. And at the center of this galaxy lies time. Time is the essence of all that ever occurs. Time is ever, never, forever, however. Time…

II Passed
and this too shall pass…

        into eternity
        into yesterday
        or tomorrow
        disappear
        and all that will be left
        is nothing~
        but the empty intangibility of corroded memory

where have my memories gone?
where have the faces, the names, the dates flown?
these perhaps have passed from me
but these perhaps are not gone forever

            and we too shall pass

            into oblivion
            into the emptiness of nonexistence
            beyond the end of the end
            and all that will be left
            is everything
            but we won’t be there to enjoy it~
            passed

but oblivion is a sweet place
it has not a time, nor can it be traced on map
oblivion is a collection plate
a feeder house for lost birds with broken wings
their songs singing beautifully all of my memories
their feathers, rainbows of dawns and dusks
my dawns and dusks
your dawns and dusks

    and the night is filled with music

the birds singing beautifully

    the sad music of could-haves

>the charming melody of dids

    and should-haves

the inebriating nostalgia of was

    and the cares infect the day

our children will come
theirs as well
as days pass, as nights pass
oblivion will be spreading its fingertips and tickling their minds
sharing our dawns and dusks
supplying new
or perhaps recycling
nothing shall pass in vain

but they shall not Pass…


III Wasted Passions

As lips curl and eyes mist, feelings are crying out in pain. As faces redden and fists clench, thoughts are howling like dying wolves. As man caresses sweet evil, souls are dying. Divinities are destroyed. Ground swells and waves roll. Earth can sense. Anger grows.

IV Revenge in the Moonlight

tonight the earth shall rest
just like the old ones said
as cats meow in city streets
and children lie in broken beds

their visions are not nightmares
their dreams are not to tease
tonight their dreams are meant to soothe
to keep them occupied and pleased

for mankind can’t be ready
tonight shall be a war
only one may prove their worth
yes, only one forever more

the feelings are preparing
and thoughts, their allies, too
their appropriate revenge
is very much long overdue

their purities and splendor
were twisted, raped, and used
save for poets, lovers, gods
their services have been abused

used for hate and evil
their wasted passions spent
silently they wait in rage
for apocalypse’s night chill scent

tonight the earth shall rest
and tomorrow it won’t wake
feelings, and their allies, thoughts
shall make the world’s foundations shake

tonight the earth shall rest
and with a final score
feelings will have freedom and
the earth in peace will cry no more

V Poetry in the Sunlight

Bees swarmed to their combs for safety, cicadas massed their voices. They knew.

I walked along a stream today, and the river gurgled fear. Its pace was anxiety, its direction was confusion. In its reflection, I could see its thoughts. Apocalypse, it said. It was true, I knew. Mother Nature had been whispering it in all forms in all parts of the world. Leaves fell as dense as snowflakes, grasses grew high and wild, rabbits burrowed deep, to the earth’s core if possible. Before I could wonder, before I could ask, before I could even sigh, something came to visit me. god came to me in its most natural state. god came to me as a poem.
Its verses and lines danced lazily in the sunlight. Its rhymes and free verse alike spoke in many voices. It was both motherly and fatherly, playful and evil, understanding and innocent. “Prepare,” it warned, “yourself. Judgement awaits.”
“Judgement,” I pondered. And I knew, I should’ve followed the bees, should’ve screamed with the cicadas. The earth came alive. It wasn’t pleased.

VI Apokalypse Rising

“can you believe it?” said the tree
“can you believe it?”
“no,” i said, “why must it end?”

the sky fell today, and all the women and children ran for shelter
they sky fell today, and all the dogs whimpered with their tails between their legs
they sky fell today, and good men died
and so did the bad

he stood at the top of a high mountain as clouds became thick and hard around him and collapsed
he stood, as birds sang apokalypse, as purple velvet sky became black sandpaper
he stood as the sky fell, and spoke into it
“why must our children run, why must out dogs suffer, why must we die?”
no voice answered him
no man, no thing, no whisper in the wind or bellow from the ocean
he was answered with a whim
go to the sea

the sky fell today, and one man was allowed to walk freely among bloody children and likewise dogs

he stepped to the sea, its waves violently rolling, swallowing pieces of sky
this harsh blue carried the black sandpaper and thick clouds to the shores
to the shores he stepped, and he might’ve begun to cry but the frigid sea air would not let his tears fall
“why?” he cried
he could not hear above the thrum of the storm
the sea roiled
it churned, and its mouth opened up
safetysafetysafetysafety
he stood on the shore
safetysafetysafety
“oh”

they sky fell today, and purged mother earth
they sky fell today, and the streets were lined with traffics of carcasses
the sky fell today, and one man survived
many followed, and lived, but one man survived
one man knew
they sky fell today, and the air was vacated for the sea
the sky fell, and man returned to its home

“go,” said the tree
“won’t you come with me,” i said
“you have had your time on the surface, now it is ours”

VII god, Thought, Trees

We the few have not yet been exiled. We the few, the poets, the lovers, are left to experience this new place. I dare not call it earth still. Feeling, thoughts I considered mine mere hours ago now run wild along fields and cities of destruction past. They laugh as technology crumbles. They make love in flowers and sing on mountaintops. And if I have never seen a poem as lovely as a tree, then I now stand before perfected magnificence. They roam the grasses, they both make and travel the landscape. god is finally with its planet. Its presence fills every crack, every ravine.

Never have I seen such words.

VIII Quiet Unease

insects
insects chattering like broken machinery
a bullfrog groans a slow, melancholy complaint
it seems cut short each time, like a half-spoken word
in the dark evening firefly flashes of yellow dance against deep purples and blues
the clouds seem to dance in the same manner
the sun and moon play a tug of war for their patronage
wind surges, stops
resurges, stops
as if mother nature herself were taking slow, contemplative breaths
no wild animal sound, no ferocious lion or angry tiger or evil man or seething bear can be heard
no car or plane or boat can be heard
by the bullfrog and the fireflies lies a small pond
by the pond lies trees, bushes
heaven’s last lights play along the surface of the water
men’s souls die and are reborn fluidly through ripples across the skin of the pond
a bench sits next to the pond, spectator-style
i sit on that bench
i sit in the garden of apocalypse

IX Oblivion Revisited

The trees grow pale, grey. Autumn is everlasting. Thoughts once rabid with joy now lethargically trace the clouds and branches among the landscape as if there were nothing else to do. The birds sing low, unimpressed. The daisies go unentertained. A poem turns melancholy, and cries its punctuation to the ground.

The seas are still. The sun and moon grow tired of their cat and mouse games and rest wherever they may drift.

The galaxies of periods blazes ravenously. In the center, time is chuckling.

god rises from his unfortunate, unwanted slumber. Trees bear fruit of uninspiration.

Oblivion runs dry. Its fingertips grow cracked, gnarled. It has no more rainbows. It has no more dusks, no more dawns, no more sunlight or moonlight, daylight or nightlight, skylight or starlight. Oblivion is passing, like man, like dreams, like time. Time has touched this place. god is now mortal to time.

What have they done?

X Rebirth

god spoke
was speech
was thought
was poetry in veins and roots of trees
god spoke to oblivion
god felt it tears drawing pain from empty banks
god saw its rainbows grey and its clouds fall
god, too, tried to cry
god went to sea

“man,” it beckoned
“mankind”
the sea answered for them now
the sea was mother
the sea now felt and thought
had its own trees growing underneath bearing fruits of inspiration
had underwater birds chirping beautiful nostalgia that arose in bubbles
popping spatters of color up into a grey existence
the sea in its own rite was god
its name was empathy

now two equals confronted
one was at the other’s mercy, the land to the sea

“help us,” said the earth
“why,” asked the ocean
“we’re dying,” pleaded the earth
“our trees and birds have no new melodies to sings
we have no dusks or dawns
we have a nighttime with a sun and a daytime with a moon
we have rain without clouds and snow without cold
we have confusion, disarray, but worse
we have apathy”

empathy answered, “apathy
you have brought it upon yourselves
you wanted good without evil
white without black
freedom from mankind”

“please,” despaired earth

“couldn’t you see the cycle of oblivion?
if you put an end to the endless
it cannot create from nothing
you may despise anger
but anger is a thing far greater than the emptiness of nothing”

mankind was a gear
in the machine of oblivion
it manufactured emotions
it created the earth, the trees
it created the good, the joy, the dawns, the dusks and rainbows
it also created sympathy

the sea rose
it became thick, moist clouds
it permeated earth
mankind rose and embraced feelings
strange birds met and sang beautiful songs together
rainbows penetrated the mist
dawn drifted into dusk drifted into dawn drifted into
“what of evil,” the voice asked
(there was only one voice now)
“it will come
it is inevitable
it is unavoidable
but oblivion will return
we shall live and die again
together, as one
both mother and father
empathy and apathy
when we pass
and are reborn
the world shall be again”

time passes
civilizations, eternity, god
are all blinks of an eye
some things continue through the pauses of passing
but when all is still
they still move
some things will not pass in vain

perhaps there is no difference between white and black
love and hate
man and thought

end.

II by Matthew Pecukonis,
additional production joe long
I, III-X by joe long,
additional production Matthew Pecukonis
I-X, final remix joe long