There once was a psychiatrist named Freud who thought all were obsessed with filling a void... a void in the pants! Though some looked askance, and those whose cigars weren't cigars were annoyed.
Freud Limerick
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Category Archives: mind
Crow Sound [Tanka]
the sharp caw of a crow triggers a monk's enlightenment. a second crow responds. a sailor doesn't look up.
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The Most Important Lesson in All of Human Living [DAILY PROMPT]
Describe something you learned in high school.
A Psych teacher told us a story of what he called “a gestalt of expectations.” A man from a city in the East is driving out West, and he passes a gas station – despite being low on fuel. (He’s used to gas stations being everywhere.) Anyhow, he runs out of fuel. He can’t see anything around except desolate desert bisected by a line of asphalt. He decides to walk back to the gas station he passed ten miles back. There is no one traveling on this remote stretch of desert road. As he’s walking in the intense heat, it comes to his mind that the employee at the service station is really going to gouge him on the price of gas and a jerry can. As he walks and walks, skin prickling with the heat, he keeps thinking about how he’s going to get screwed by the gas station attendant and also how he’ll be chided and ridiculed for running out of gas in the middle of the desert. He imagines it in great detail. Finally, bedraggled and with heaving breaths, he arrives at the station. The gas station attendant rushes out to help this poor man, and the man punches the attendant square in the nose (for all the offenses taking place solely in the man’s mind.)
In a broader formulation, I think this is the most important lesson any human can learn. Our personal perception of what we experience is not equal to what it is that we experience (the exterior world.) This is why some people dealt a crappy hand can turn it into a wonderful life, and also why some people who seem to have it all commit suicide in the prime of life.
I could be angered or dismayed that the single most important lesson I learned in secondary school was via off-curriculum ramblings during an elective class, but I choose not to. Instead, I’ve been trying all my life to make that bit of knowledge into wisdom.
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Pond Plonk [Haiku]
plonk! - in the pond, the ripples awaken something in my mind.
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Cave Monster [Common Meter]
I sit within an empty cave. It's empty, that's for sure. It's dark, so dark that nothing shines. What sound is that? A purr? I'm in this cave, and not alone, but with what I can't say. It's in the back where it's jet black -- a predator? Or prey? I'm walking now; I don't dare run. the ground is all cockeyed with stalagmites and stalactites. I grope, in need of guide. And feeling through Stygian space, I bust open my head. Warm blood, I feel, run down my face. I'm squeezed by rising dread. I hear a squeak, a mouse strolls through; then silence is restored. If only my mind were so rid of its outsized horrors.
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Off-Kilter [Free Verse]
woke up,
stitched up;
something growing
deep within
inside /
outside
what strange hell
is this?
what's this box i
built within my brain:
old ideas keeping
out the light
i read a story,
made a movie --
all within my mind,
but something grew out
that i couldn't comprehend
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Plays No Favorites [Haiku]
sunlight breaks into the forest -- not favoring the tranquil yogi.
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Leaf Enlightened [Common Meter]
I stared, and stared, into a leaf
until my vision changed.
And I could see the whole, wide world
so artfully arranged.
The leaf, it mapped my universe
from atom to the sprawl.
Compressed, layer-on-layer, there
was one and, at once, all.
But before I could grasp all that
this vision truly meant,
a gust of wind did catch that leaf,
and fluttering it went.
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Silent Wailing [Sonnet]
I saw the lips move, but no sound came out. The message could not cross from air to brain. With reddened face, next an attempted shout, but silence suggests words weren't true but feigned. You'll think me deaf, but I heard other sounds: a ticking clock, a fan, and distant horns. Maybe, barrier glass made unseen bounds? Perhaps, but what bars only sound that mourns? I know of nothing that would fit the bill, but start to suspect nothing stopped the scream from reaching me, but rather force of will did stick that voiceless face within my dream. But am I sure I'm having a nightmare? I can't say for sure that I'm even here.
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Bridge Out [Free Verse]
When I was a child,
for a time,
the bridge was out.
They were replacing the rusty
iron trestle bridge
with a thick-slab concrete
monstrosity.
I could go down to the river,
and I could see the
scarred and marred
construction site,
& the big yellow machines
that sat dormant on the weekends.
But one couldn't cross the river --
not unless one was willing to get wet,
and was a better swimmer than I
(and it was autumn & the water cold.)
It was a strong current that swept
along between two steep banks.
It was not a great distance,
nor were they violent waters.
But that brown water moved with
such smooth swiftness.
I dream about the time the bridge was out,
now & again,
and wonder what it was
about those weeks
that still has meaning to my mind.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 