Picking Up the Pieces of My Mind

[Read this first: A Post-Leaping Man Piece of My Mind]


Strew your ideas like jackstraws.

Study the mess.

See nothing but your failure to achieve coherence.

The one hundred thousand times this has happened before never prepares you. Muses are fey in every sense of the word, and if there’s one thing you can learn from Tolkien, it’s that the fey can be a bitch.

At this moment it is impossible to judge whether you only now have begun to suck, or you only now begin to see clearly.

Bad Poet! Disaster. Bereft.

Breathe.

Have a snack.

Have another.

The rules of the game are the same for jackstraws and writing: Pick up the best, leave the rest.

There is no present use for these images, ideas. They sink below the surface, holding their shape. One day you’ll go fishing. Something big will leap into to the boat. Or, you will throw out a line and catch something apt:

The head as a raw egg, elliptically spinning.
The yolk-center, holding together as it careens.
The body a self-published gallery of memories.
The rune: ancestry and inheritance written on the body.
Mute evidence of our histories, written on our bodies.
Everything is real.
Be vigilant.
Trust nothing.