Best Cortex Poems
I hold myself a prisoner
A captive taciturn
Unspeakable enticement still yearning
Since coming of age to discern
Yet never knowing
Except in part
The fullness to overflowing
In the cerebral cortex of my heart
The heart knows reason
Which reason does not know
Inoculated by truth a lie will weaken
Like the dawn of a child in an embryo
For this the battle to bring heart to speech
In mind, for one to live oft' another thing dies
It's the delicate balance when determined to please
Suspended between fulfillment's death and the giving of life
The beauty of a fractured symmetry
Where thinking heart meets mind
To know this elusive camaraderie
Perhaps in a world in eternities time
So I see myself in another life
Where sorrows hold no interest
A wistful smile proves transparent
While intensity conveys my signet
Warmth and wrath bear equal zeal
But I, an antithesis in perfect balance
A lonely vagrant thronged by faces
Embraced by insipid attachments
As honey brines by way of nectar
In homes fashioned with wax
Void of every ignoble stinger
Known to propitiate the diffident task
Thus so masked I travel still
The duplicitous road yet shackled
Until my tongue finds clemency
From the demons my mind embattles
Words swirl
Words curl
Wrapping around my cerebral cortex
Doctor with precise surgical context
Ink spills sterile the page my patient
Every word a pulse my thoughts foundation
Mind turbine spinning I'm wired on syntax
Syllables sprint laps no time to relax
Ideas combust rush through the glass
Concepts clash crash flash overlap
I code in couplets debug emotion
Flow in motion logic ocean
Every notion an explosion in disguise
I'm the reason metaphors oxidize
Venom in the rhythm when I'm penning my division
Inner vision in collision with precision and revision
Riddle every little syllable until the middle brittle
Whittle down a paragraph a parable a pinnacle
Poetry ritual pivoting intervals minimal literal
Cynical clinical miracle lyrical chemical spherical
Chronicle particles articles spark into particles
Logical arsenal marvel in carnival poetic arsenal
Now I'm sprinting on a thought train off chain all brain
Mainframe flame rain cant contain my own name
Echo chamber danger ranger changing lanes
Strange exchanges rearrange poetic remains
Rhymes ricochet through a crowded skull
Frequencies full mind chemical pull
Language bends like a solar flare
I inhale the noise till the words get air
Now the fire cools the letters on drip
The monster sleeps in the ink I grip
Every line a mirror every word a scar
I built this creature from who we are
Thoughts swirl words curl silence next
Peace rewires my cerebral cortex
Deep within throes of writer's block cerebral cortex feels frozen to the core
Haint no rhyme nor reason
why writing a poem such an arduous chore
twenty two days afore
winter solstice twenty twenty more
or less three weeks from tomorrow
November thirtieth, I implore
the god/goddess of poetry,
perhaps found within Bangalore
highlighted by the 'Green Door'
guarded by the key don Eeyore
also known as Al Gore
him of Earth in the Balance fame
who by George got ambushed unsure
if he chad chance to claim victory tour
when former candidate did score
less electoral college votes
nevertheless in my mind before
thoroughgoing count did ignore
discarded ballots scattered
all across the floor
which outcome incurred Iraq war
insinuating weapons of mass destruction
the gung ho forty third president forswore
existed but quite a few
respectable Republicans did abhor
pinning such ambiguous lore
upon head of recalcitrant Saddam Hussein
bombed back to stone age
think lavishing primitive home decor
no imprecation heaped and hurled
upon United States military, nor
thug, who nobody did adore
asking politely "por favor
can I pretty please take detour
to Galapagos Islands of Ecuador
made famous courtesy Charles Darwin
still popular best selling author
at garden variety generic bookstore
which borders on ridiculous for sure
yet inane rhyme tore
thru my noggin after writer's block
yours truly did deplore
he would spend countless hours in vain
every burst of creativity I did explore
found me smack dab against
figurative cul de sac and bonjour
to you too three score
orbitz after me late papa did bore
mama, she passed away
fifteen years before.
the sky h o m e s
what the sea
cannot confine
as clouds crawl and croon
carving contours
of compassion
to calm the chaos unseen
within
the cortex of the cosmos...
but I wonder
does the ocean
a d r i f t
in sunken silence
ever taste the briny burn
within the
lagoon of loneliness
amidst its
relentless kindness?
as I see clusters of clutter
nestled in the
somber greys of haze
and this heart
weeps for the wounded...
perhaps it is in
solitary spheres
they ache for the
starry kiss of poisonous urchins
cradling bleached blues
dwelling in the depth
of aquatic agony…
but when thoughts
spiral like sea-tossed
conch shells
I refuse to believe
there,
in the cusp of
weathering waves
blooms not
an aesthetic dream
resembling love that breathes
beyond the
grasp of galaxies~
to be heard
when
p a u s e d
is the shipwrecked requiem
within pained pebbles
piercing through~
like poetry
without a pulse…
My cerebral cortex -
indeed, you are the vortex,
processing my senses,
the place where joy condenses.
It's to you I owe
every pretty sky,
each note that makes me sigh,
and grandma's apple pie.
Please don't ever go.
No one can see it, but I’m poisoned.
Every morning, I take my meds,
and as the pills travel down my throat,
I wonder if this is the only antidote.
When I sit alone in my bed,
pondering my own crippling thoughts,
the poison makes me ill.
Will I ever get this out of my system? I ask.
It lingers through my body—
from my head, deep in my brain,
to my stomach, where I get nauseous
at the thought of my own mental toxins.
Although I didn’t consume something deadly to make me sick,
the poison in my prefrontal cortex
might just be the death of me.
When I walk into a room, no one sees
that every step I take is intense pain.
For now, I’ll go to sleep with this poison
eating at my life
and hope that it doesn’t kill me.
I’m poisoned mentally,
but not physically.