A poem about my brain. My wife often says she can hear me thinking, so I got to wondering what my brain sounds like. Is it a mystery of meat or a steampunk marvel?
Mystery of meat
Early hours and the strain.
My brain leaning hard against the walls.
A glossy squash of hills and gullies
hunched in the dark.
A thick hidden knuckle of sponge
simmering in secret sloop.
What is my brain? A kilo of gunk and goop.
A mystery of meat.
Blind slug. Damp slog of a doorstop.
How does this thing make thoughts?
Does it chew them with soft molars?
Release them like pheromones?
Where is the whirring engine?
It must be there. I hear its relentless cogs
the tick-tocking brass teeth.
Grinding plates and golden gears.
Factory of invention.
Zings of pulleys and springs.
What is my brain? A steampunk marvel.
Metal spinning like tortured vinyl.
Rickety valves sneezing through balustrades of light
and a tiny wild scientist with ecstatic hair
and a flying white coat
who never takes a break except to play the pipe organ
loudly, and always at midnight.
Published in Show & Tell – Writing Pictures Drawing Words, a collaboration between Tauranga Writers and Tauranga Society of Artists 2017