a steady rain patters into puddles far below i close my eyes, listening for a pattern but it's chaotic - a random rhythm that tugs at my eyelids, lulling me into a dull state of mind
Wu Shih / “Nothing Special” [Free Verse]
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Tag Archives: mind
BOOK REVIEW: MonsterMind by Alfonso Casas
MonsterMind: Dealing with Anxiety & Self-Doubt by Alfonso CasasMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Out: October 12, 2021
This comic offers a clever and insightful look at the voices inside one’s head. The use of cute graphic depictions of fears, doubts, and past traumas – along with lighthearted narrative analogies – allows the reader to explore the subject matter in a manner that is neither dry nor anxiety-inducing, in and of itself. This apparently autobiographical book shows how a comic artist, beleaguered by the monstrous occupants of his own mind, goes from being overwhelmed to learning to manage his mind.
At the end of the book there are a few pages of tips, both for dealing with one’s own anxieties but also for interacting with others who have intense embattled minds. It’s a book that may even be more beneficial for individuals without crippling issues themselves, but who know or love such individuals. The use of graphic depictions and adroit portrayals of anxiety may help individuals who haven’t faced severe issues to gain a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of those who do. Having said that, these “monsters” will be familiar to everyone on some level, though for many that that level doesn’t necessarily interfere with living their lives.
I’d highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a gentle and amusing introduction to the topic of the runaway mind. It’s delightfully drawn and amusingly told.
View all my reviews
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Two Birds [Haiku]
two birds feed; one eats, and one wonders about the other
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That Last Lost Generation [Free Verse]
Only too eager to have the machine installed in their brains, they did what they could, and, instead, installed their brains into the machine. Data sparkled in the mind void, bouncing about and careening into other bytes and clusters. But the crash cascades always came, a cannibalistic consumption of fact, transmogrifying it into a shabby soup of quasi-reality. Brain-pans paining, densely packed with alternate realities that could never be rectified. By the time they realized the virtue of going out to play, they were no longer sure what "outside" meant -- Outside of what? Where's the exit? Where is there something else? -something simple? How's one get off this speeding bus? It became the pain that ruled that last lost generation.
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Calming Chaos [Haiku]
POEM: Information Age Ailment
Screaming streams of information pelt all corners of the mind. Neurons are constantly flickering with flinches. Meanwhile, the body whispers its secrets in the hushed tones of a prayer uttered during a shootout.
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Subconscious [Haibun]
Couriers carry communiques from town to town in the country of me. These secret messages are unprojected, but couriers sometimes sneak peeks. Then, a summary can be read in an expression - a precis that could elsewise not be divined. An expression read from aspect of eye is a hint, and is as reliable as any hint -- which is to say, not very. A hint is subject to misinterpretation. It presupposes a common language, a lingua franca that doesn't exist because one side has no language and the other is afflicted by the arrogant assumption that all things are understood via language. shooting signals snap through the unmapped spaces of my mind
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POEM: Floating in the Nowhere [PoMo Day 21 – Narrative]
In the lunatic asylum, it's quiet after the meds round. R's mind was in the madhouse, but his body was in a lifeboat, or maybe vice versa, he couldn't tell for sure. He only knew that he was floating, and, sometimes, it was too choppy, and if life got too happy, he felt that it was fake. The open sea 's a harsh place, but no worse than the where he carried everywhere he ventured inside his dense brainpan. A fatal, futile option was selected with a button that may -- or may not -- have resided within his very soul. So thirsty and so lonely -- side-effects of something. It might have been the meds, or, perhaps, the salty air. He chose to think he wasn't bounded by a nutshell; though his brand of crazy was quiet before the storm. One day his kidneys gave out. Who could've ever imagined that such a thing could happen in such a place as that.
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POEM: Seashore Mind [PoMo Day 15 – Villanelle]
The waves are churned to foam. The sight mesmerizes. My mind is miles from home. My seated self does roam -- chaos that surprises, like waves are churned to foam. Like one w/ Capgras Syndrome, hustler mistrust arises. My mind 's wary of home. I focus on the chrome, but my ear recognizes the waves that churn to foam. I've vagabond chromosomes, but still the thought chastises: "Your mind is miles from home!" I'm sitting all alone, and my mind surmises: Like waves churned to foam, your mind 's so far from home.
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POEM: Mental Weather
My mind experiences unforecastable weather.
Adrift in horse latitudes
Tortured by a polar vortex
Low pressure systems
to
High pressure systems
Storm fronts & storm surges
Partly sunny / partly cloudy
or
Partly cloudy / partly sunny
[Depending upon whether I’m in a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of mood.]
Lightening strikes
Wind shear / wind chill / wind chimes
Squalls
Droughts, often followed by flash flooding
Breezes, blizzards, and breezy blizzards
Microbursts
Flood crests
Nor’easters
Due points and do points [if not a dew point]
Topical depression — though no tropical depressions
Hail storms
Sun Dogs & rainbows
