The Bicameral Mind

Language

as Beckett supposedly said

(or was it Ionesco?) is something

gone wrong with the silence.

Writing:  an act so simple it isn't worth

mentioning. An action so brutal it can

separate the mind  from the fallible body,

which is chained to the cyclic tortures of sleep

as  bottleneck,  switchboard,  ground.

Idiot and idiom derive

from the same Greek root

meaning private, one’s own,

Gramsci noted

Is it possible some of those lost or discarded pages

were precisely the ones that might have supplied

some meaning,  the missing phrase?  Are they

alive somewhere and growing, like the children

whose faces adorn or deface milk cartons?

Being in the present

observes Anne C. Klein

is always interesting

Sometimes you flare up—demanding

fairness, attention, sanity—becoming

unfair,  inattentive,   insane.

This release is a mild stimulant,

about as harmless or harmful as coffee,

depending on your metabolism

Pasolini believed

that revolts are fed

by a secret

anxiety for order

Ask yourself:  is the whole thing

merely a swirl of indifference,

an ocean of chaos where we try

to shore up islands of light?

The passions are numberless.

You vow to extinguish them all.

But not  yet.