Trains of Thought

When I was of a smaller age, I liked words.

Words that destroyed cities and words that constructed thoughts,

Written out on thin sheets of paper at 3:42 A.M.

Because that’s when that thought caught fire and lit up the world

In a blaze so hot, it seared the sun.

Words that build up entire universes just because a writer made a decision.

That’s power.

See, there’s an elegant beauty in a poem

Like the contiguous sloping between landscapes found in a meadow

Filled with flowers so inexplicably wondrous to the eye

That I lose each train of thought passing through the station of my mind.

There’s miraculous joy in a poem

As poets play with powdery words tossed together in a jar too large

And laugh as the powder mixes in smoky wisps

Settling to the bottom only to be cut open and analyzed

Like a practicing surgeon, playing with his new scalpel and exploring anatomy

And finally finding that which we frequently focus on

What we try to expound on, endlessly searching

Day after day, and year after year

We pour another glass and wait for the next tear

Masochistically hoping for new material

When we get idle, we get lazy

When we get lazy, we get bored

When we get bored, we get insecure

When we get insecure, we get angry

Angry that we are bored, angry that we got lazy

Angry because an idle mind brings in time thoughts of our inequities

Our past is filled with transgressions, mistakes

And all it takes for a little regression is idleness and anger

Such an anger that broods and builds in the confines of our body

Not our mind, because if we were in our correct mind, we’d realize

That all this theorizing leading to a terrorizing of our positive mentality is inconsequential

But before you think that I’ve lost track of the purpose of this poem,

I’d like you to read the first stanza again

A poem is the contiguous sloping between emotions and experiences,

Between theories, thoughts, and ideas

Between our realities and our make-believes

Between what we want and what we need

Between obsession and apathy

If weaving a few lines together like vines growing out of my skin and mind

Is how I explore my situations, so be it.

If writing prose to close out a poem because I have not mastered the art of poetry and I don’t know how to land a plane helps me confront myself, then I’m going to write prose to close out a poem. See, poetry is an art form, and therefore subjective in nature. Judge my words up against a formula or rubric out of necessity. That’s fine by me, but if these words give me power, then I’m going to write all night in the futile effort of finding myself. The truth is, I’m not a poet.

I’m a poem.