A Journey Through the Untranslated Mind

NOTE: As an experiment, many years ago, I decided to do some free associative writing. Words that connected in my brain were written down without filter. This worked relatively well for the beginning, but soon the surreal disjointed words shifted into poetic expression. That wasn’t the point of the exercise, and nowadays it does little more than underscore how depressed I actually was. Instead of rubbing our noses in depressive self-expression, I edited that section out and combined the two attempts into one.

Ask my Know. He were no cigarette.

A start. Beginning at the crest of the flowing river starts a rolling wave through green grass and brown bark framing the picture of space travel. Hopping through lobster bisque jumps green and smiling while running, fleeing, terrified of black shadows that creep from home. Dark eyes of glowing red coals flicker, dying in the fireplace with a smoky smell of tobbacco and harsh sandpaper on the throat. A tricking water flow lands, turning stone into worth and value.

Singing freely while the first time dancing, the I that waits for something to happen feels the disappointment cleanly and sharply like the burning pizza pan on the inner arm, while staples and wrist blisters echo in the caverns of memory. Poetry and music bubble up from murky depths like fish begging to be caught while failure lurks behind like an arrent monkey, teeth and claws.

Taking fruit and vegetable off of trees and tables, feeling the thin grease and slick glass of ground up plant bone and stretched dead animal skin across rotting moss and mushroom. It sizzles filling the head with savory and clam. White and slippery, sourer than vinegar, providing succor to the heart but clamor to the tongue. An ache builds looking at her eyes, seeing the pain in her smile. Nonsense that cannot be spoken but felt clearly as branded on the skin like pain.

Back! Back! Dragon pushing through the limbs roaring teeth through their chatter! Consuming thoughts like veracious Langoleers, with chainsaw teeth, a letdown of meatballs — never tasted but with gluten and kidney beans. Demanding silence because there could be genius under rocks and leaves, never wanting anything but peace and respect. Thoughts of hope and potential paths, quivering with anticipation like a coiled slinky falling down stairs in unavoidable ineptitude. weak and flimsy, incomparable, but pitied and tolerated like harmless puppies who dream of wolves.

Tigers and ants crawling over everything, the din crashing out the struggle within and demanding a side be chosen. The oneness of peace and zen being crushed out of the skull by clumsy sledges, crafted by cavemen who know the ways of things. Pieces of granite sharpened into spears to cut and carve the well meaning but flawed imperfections from the world. Until we love them. Glittering and joyful we shove them in our ears, begging for more until we are full, and we never are full.

Mirrors everywhere in peoples eyes, showing fractured and failed copies of your own divinity, every failing magnified in every spoke word or twisted smile. People scream and cry and laugh and dance and speak and demand but never to the person they think they want. Slivers of scraps, papers of slogans and riddles slipped under doorways that help describe the elephant so perfectly wrong. Bitter disappointment in the lock-pick I have crafted, until hot tears burn the heart, but never the eyes.

Dreary thimbles, sobbing clamor.

Pieces of key rings flashing in the eyes. Taken fast and hard in the ear. Lifting the head off the shoulders that carry heaviness as a burden for the sheeply cattle of man and woman across the ocean swirling H.P Lovecraft and tiny barges of rotten bark and branch. Floating briskly down the rainbow path dancing lights making marry in the brain, trapping in chains and forcing eyes open — away from respect and hopeful joy.

Break free with harsh fuel and burning liquid flame. Mist the mind and blur the eyes so the chains dissolve with the thoughts that crawl like sludge. Picking pieces of grit up with tweezers, symbol of mirth. scraping away kicks with leather straps waved in front of potential friend’s stomach. Muttonchops and purple derby hats. Anything to break the pathway open to stride through sweetly.

Brushes of lather that make for clean letters but small words, chipping away at the stone with a chisel, years for a single thought. Scraping and pinpricks under the chin, never as clean or smooth as it should be. Dance the mind thought rain and bubbling. Squeeze thoughts toothpase out of tubes and tunnels, cauliflower crunching in leftover red cartons. Healthy and meatless, tasting of paper — clean and carved with black lines.

Awake and stumbling, harsh throat. Drifting with pain in the nose and yearning for warm clouds. Walking the path, hoping the city lies at the end, but never seeing it get closer. Singing while walking, wondering where the guides are, hunting for shells and shards of signs and polished glass, until the mist can rise, and clarity reigns. Spinning through stars and muddy waves of cloth and angles, seeking other ways of unknown flowing days.

There in lies the broiling fumes that curl around hair and flinging dirt. Dancing through ears, always dancing. Torn apart with raging clutching at the ground to throw through the cutting air. Unfair calls with reverberating echoes that pierce bones like needles, while sparks and flashes of unseen dreams burst in the hollows of the eyes.