{"id":407938,"date":"2024-04-11T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=407938"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Streaming-conscious-and-unconscious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Streaming-conscious-and-unconscious\/","title":{"rendered":"Streaming conscious and unconscious"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo many of us streaming along\u2014all of humanity, really\u2014moving in perfect sync, yet each lost in the room of a perfect dream.\u201d \u2014excerpt from<\/strong><\/em> The Parade by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate 2001 to 2003.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

IN A THREE-DIMENSIONAL DREAM<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

Imagine swift *river rapids<\/p>\n

that always flow both ways<\/p>\n

into an ocean of thought<\/p>\n

dementia slowly dams them<\/p>\n

dementia slowly damns them<\/p>\n

the thoughts get caught<\/p>\n

Imagine electricity in neural activity<\/p>\n

connecting and enlightening ideas<\/p>\n

swimming through them<\/p>\n

fraught with neural onslaught<\/p>\n

quickly sailing into a sea<\/p>\n

of senescent synaptic tides<\/p>\n

short term memory loss slows<\/p>\n

despite the rapid neural flows<\/p>\n

as senile dementia settles in.<\/p>\n

(*The river referred to here is the corpus callosum.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is often called, \u201cthe river that flows both ways.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It is a mass of transverse fibers connecting our<\/em><\/p>\n

brain\u2019s cerebral hemispheres.)<\/em><\/p>\n

IN MY LAST REMAINING YEARS<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

In my last remaining years<\/p>\n

random thoughts come to mind<\/p>\n

much more slowly shifting gears<\/p>\n

days go by more bumps and grinds<\/p>\n

how much longer knees worn and sore<\/p>\n

liver and kidneys shot and bursting<\/p>\n

arthritic fingers switch lights on a chore<\/p>\n

for current medical thought I\u2019m thirsting<\/p>\n

forgetting this and then forgetting that<\/p>\n

when will I begin to totally forget<\/p>\n

sugars and sweets put on more fat<\/p>\n

about your lies I no longer sweat<\/p>\n

neural synapses on a sinking barge<\/p>\n

as my corpus callosum loses its charge.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo many of us streaming along\u2014all of humanity, really\u2014moving in perfect sync, yet each lost…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}