The Thinking Man

A poem, originally titled "Modern Philosopher." Written a while back, but re-read it tonight and made me smile. I was so young and full of hope... *tear*

...

In his sway, holding tight to the point

Which must be made now at any expense, he grits out his words

And feels them bumping stony down paths of other brains

Landslides, mudslides, pebbles in a field, stationary and irrelevant.

Absently he wonders how many trees he can blow down with his hot breath of apathy,

This hot air of pompitude and attitude of mischarity.

He wonders, among the rumblings, where he picked it up, his habits of

Ignorance and self-loathing. But he knows he’s not stupid, just hateful and

Ruined; he considers the gun, for whom, he’s uncertain, but in the silence the thought

Becomes as foolish and humiliating as a remark out of place, uncalled for, offensive,

And he drops it, hot stones.

Why do these moments always last forever? Don’t they tire of being, and give up,

And leave people like me to the next moment?

But he doesn't really care – his life is a series of these embarrassments,

Punctuated by kind faces he frowned at and kind words he ignored,

This hell is familiar, and in a way he wants it.

Yes, he tells himself with a sigh, it’s all about control, and the control I can’t have,

And the control I must have; I did not ask for this desire, but now that it’s swallowed me

It’s for me to live up to. Simple, really. It’s a matter of things becoming other things,

And People becoming Ideas.                            

The moment luxuriates, and he considers death, a humorous and bloated bully

Which he has observed from a distance, laughing at himself for doing so.

What if, he wonders, these minds should die, and I should be left here to

Dig out their ideas alone?

And if the bones I find hide no gold?

What if everything I've thought and they've thought has been thought before

By some sordid poet or philosopher or garbage man,

And everything that I use to impress myself on the world is an old tool, grossly unoriginal,

And stinking of overuse?

Well? And where would I stand?

Quickly he asks himself to try to be happy; he’s sure other people manage it, and he’s tired

Of trying so hard. Sois content, he reminds himself, comforted by the logic of

Other languages, ones that sit like field pebbles on the tongue. The sound of it

Echoes in the hollows left by other minds crashing downward,

Wax-melty, and stunned by ocean. Anyone pressing an ear to the never-ending moment

Could make out waves, and one man’s raving voice.