Benny Bigelow

Bray Mcdonald

1.

The wheat-field was tall enough to hide in for a freckled face nine-year old boy adverse to being found.

Safe for the moment he seethed in his rage as he attempted to placate his panic and quell the riot of his fear.

The sun shone down on the red-neck and bare-feet of a child young enough to have an amoral view of ethics.

(The immorality of the innocent can be considerable. The least of intentions can have a fundamental impact on them. A relatively small gesture could entirely obliterate years of trust.)

Attitudes of good and evil rested in the nest of his ignorance as he reveled in his savagery like a young lion on the prowl.

His desperate and distorted desires ran deeper than his naïve understanding of them as he sought light in his realm of dark.

His inheritance sprouted from crass roots embroidered with cancerous nodes and cankers. His future chain-linked to his parent’s prosaic past.

2.

At fourteen Benny doodled passive-aggressive artwork in red ink along the margins of all his boring books

letting his mind drift through the barriers that others had built to corral and conform his spirit.

He inflected a rebellious desire to break from any confine that stifled his passion

to leave the familiar path to explore the mysteries and unknowns of his existence.

The length of his nuance extended his well-being beyond the reach of what held him to his home.

3.

Born bipedal and peregrinate Benny Bigelow talked big and walked bold and made his way in the world by bullying and waging war on his heritage.

His demons would break their silence and explode when confronting a problem that didn’t play fair. A spiritual revolt born out of annoyance would rage for miles and lay waste to his manufactured landscape of hope.

Benny disappointed everyone he met. But he didn’t think much about it because he had been disappointed by everyone he met.

He cast aside what had failed him and learned to live with the guilt of knowing the grief he inflected upon the spirit of those he failed.

Benny had no fear of death and was good with God as each respected the fact the other didn’t exist and they agreed on everything important about humanity and the absurdness of a conscious mind.

Bray McDonald is a poet and environmentalist. Mr. McDonald has been published in numerous journals in the U. S. and Europe including ‘Blue Collar Review’, ‘California Quarterly’, ‘The Cape Rock’, ‘Dash’, ‘I-70 Review’, ‘Rockhurst Review’, ‘Third Wednesday’, ‘Chiron Review’, ‘Adelaide Literary Magazine’, ‘Nod’ (Can.); and “Between These Shores Anthology”, “Gold Dust” in the UK and The Transnational (Ger.). He also has poetry forthcoming in ‘Harbinger Asylum’, ‘Evening Street Review’, ‘Plainsongs’ and “Colere”.