Streaming conscious and unconscious

“So many of us streaming along—all of humanity, really—moving in perfect sync, yet each lost in the room of a perfect dream.” —excerpt from The Parade by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate 2001 to 2003.

IN A THREE-DIMENSIONAL DREAM

Imagine swift *river rapids

that always flow both ways

into an ocean of thought

dementia slowly dams them

dementia slowly damns them

the thoughts get caught

Imagine electricity in neural activity

connecting and enlightening ideas

swimming through them

fraught with neural onslaught

quickly sailing into a sea

of senescent synaptic tides

short term memory loss slows

despite the rapid neural flows

as senile dementia settles in.

(*The river referred to here is the corpus callosum.

It is often called, “the river that flows both ways.”

It is a mass of transverse fibers connecting our

brain’s cerebral hemispheres.)

IN MY LAST REMAINING YEARS

In my last remaining years

random thoughts come to mind

much more slowly shifting gears

days go by more bumps and grinds

how much longer knees worn and sore

liver and kidneys shot and bursting

arthritic fingers switch lights on a chore

for current medical thought I’m thirsting

forgetting this and then forgetting that

when will I begin to totally forget

sugars and sweets put on more fat

about your lies I no longer sweat

neural synapses on a sinking barge

as my corpus callosum loses its charge.

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.