Monday, March 16, 2009

This is going to make me sound crazy, like a tree!

My computer is alive and kicking, protected by free softwares that barely let me do anything: "Wordperfect is trying to connect to the keyboard! Allow?", but I suppose that's what you get when everything is configured to "Paranoid Mode". And yes, that's a real setting.


I am working on a poem inspired by a line that came to me this morning in the shower. "These are the trees going on without us", which has become the title of the piece. It's not done-done though, but so far, the ending seems to involve trees going kinda crazy... I don't know why. Probably just because the language that led to the conclusion sounds really really good.


Some of my best poems come to me in the shower. Something about the quiet, but not too quiet, atmosphere lets my mind wander. So it's probably not a bad thing that sometimes all I want to do is spend my day in there. Also, it's so very nice and warm...

Lines of poems not yet written are scattered in my brain. Maybe the over-abundance of steam (did I forget to turn the fan on again?) lets them knock loose and slide out my ears, or something.

Please invent waterproof paper.


I also can let my mind wander towards the poetic when I go for walks. Lots to see and ponder. The white puff of dandelions in fall inspired a poem that never got written; the sight of a smatter of dead bees littering the sidewalk beneath a tree lead to "The Mortality of Bees"; the moss leading up the drive to the home where the nun lives will, I promise myself, one day flesh out into more than just notes.

There's almost a mode my mind clicks into. And it's a shame but sometimes I just won't let it. I don't have the energy, the time, the paper or pen to let the words flow around like they need to in order to become poetry. The rest of life gets in the way, but it's a strong pull, an almost physical sensation, to the point where I feel as if I need to shake it out of my head when it gets going and I don't want it to.

When I do let it, though, the words sound like they come from somewhere else in my head, somewhere deeper. I sound crazy, but I wonder if that kind of thing would show up in a brain scan?


I've read somewhere that way back when, the egyptians believed the brain was nothing, just a bunch of gunk I guess. They thought that the heart was the seat of the mind and soul. I wonder if they heard their thoughts from their chest. I really do wonder about this. It kinda plagues me.

3 comments:

  1. "When I do let it, though, the words sound like they come from somewhere else in my head, somewhere deeper. I sound crazy, but I wonder if that kind of thing would show up in a brain scan?"

    It would be really interesting to know, wouldn't it? And for a small fee (it was about $1000), you could have an MRI - the problem would be timing it for when you felt inspired... I wonder - do they make portable MRI machines? Perhaps that's what all those people wearing baseball caps are doing... or is it the toques?

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  2. We spotted the last half of an iphone ad on tv, that showed an mri scan of a knee or something. What the ad was really saying, we don't actually know, but we thought it was hilarious to think that an iphone could do mri scans, cause I mean, it already does everything else, right?

    On an SNL skit: "The new iPhone comes with an iGenie, and three iWishes..."

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  3. Well, to be honest, it also has a portable, inflatable James Bond 007 that is activated by pushing the volume to max while simultaneously standing on your head and pirouetting... but don't tell anyone - it's top secret.
    Whomever let the iGenie out of the bottle will be in a world of hurt - that's still in Beta release....
    MRI - that's been done already, as you saw - now the newest thing is the "transporter mode", but again, beta....

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