Poetic Reflections: thoughtlessness

Have you ever had to walk around without a thought in your skull? How about an absent mind? It occurs to me. I can be a very thoughtless person. I’m kind of used to it, in fact . . . . . . . . . . . . . You’re still here. Are you waiting for something? I hope you don’t think I have anything to say. One might certainly expect with such a topic for there to be the opposite. Even more than usual. I think I’ve said all that I can say given my current mental state. What do you mean, if it occurs to me then I must be thinking something? There’s nothing that occurs to me when that occurs, got it?

I suppose I could wrack my brain to wring a thought or two from the folds of its squishy gray matter. It won’t be easy. First I have to decide the best means by which to get inside my head. Does anyone have a pickaxe or saw? A cleaver, perhaps? Or maybe a machete? How about a pair of extremely long pliers? While you scrounge up the necessary equipment, I’ll just contemplate the wind between my ears.

Ooo, nice! It’s like listening to a seashell. Hmmmm. If you listen to a seashell by the seashore, how can you be sure whether the sound of the ocean you hear is from the shell or all of those waves splish-splashing onto the beach?

But enough about that. How terribly thoughtless! I’ve left you dangling like a participle, haven’t I? I do tend to do that. If only I knew why. Being thoughtless, I haven’t the foggiest of ideas. C’est la vie. Que sera, sera. Around, around it goes; where it stops, nobody knows. I’m afraid that’s the best I can manage without giving it more thought, which I can’t do since I don’t have more thought to give. Does that indicate I’m brain-dead? I like to think I’m merely preoccupied. A wee distracted. Attention-deficit-disordered. I assure you it’s only temporary. It’s just most of the time and more often than not. It’s as if my thoughts wandered and never came back. Yes, that’s exactly what it is.

Of course, it’s possible too that my brain was consumed by a hungry zombie. Or picked apart by critics and vultures; inquisitioners and plagiarers; copycats and belfry bats; a patch of wandering fungus. Or surgically removed by a lobotomist. Stolen by a mad scientist. Extracted through my nose by an Egyptian embalmer who presumed me dead for simply being lethargic. (Hey, these things happen!)

Some people are thoughtless in other ways. Through careless words and deeds. By what they don’t as much as what they do. Then there are those who say what they don’t think and mean. Words without sincerity are hollow thoughts without the ring of truth, forsooth. It’s wise to think before one speaks, but not premeditate or calculate. Speak from the heart. It isn’t always the big things we say and do that matter. Sometimes the little things add up, amounting to our measure.

Ah, thoughtlessness. How I’d love to wade the shallows of its depth. But if everything we’ve ever thought might come unthunk, would our thunkenings become neverthoughts? Would our afterthoughts be too late? Would our shouldas become less than zero or lost in space? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Typically, I don’t actually know where I’m going with this. If I could think, I would probably have a clue. Or I’d have never begun this rambling thoughtless preambling in the first place. Alas I did and so it’s done. I can’t erase the past. I could delete these words but then I wouldn’t complete my column. There is in that this, as in this that, and thus I shall have to be stuck in the muck of my own making.

While I claim no responsibility for any thoughtlessness that bursts out of my noggin, I will tell you this: Let an umbrella be your umbrella, because smiles only work for candy sprinkles, baby showers, and figurative monsoons.

April is the month of williwackery and fuddlebeduddlement, in which there are deluges of madness along with delusions of fools falling from the sky. There can also be bucket-sized raindrops that may require the genuine article, and a sturdy one at that!

Which brings us to the question, have you ever felt silly when wet? It’s a bit like being slippery when wet without the hydroplaning. It’s plain ridiculous is what it is, and I must advise against it. Which is why you should always remember your trusty umbrella, good for rain or shine. And if you should need to clobber someone. Or float downward with dignity instead of a lengthy drawn-out shriek.

I think I’ve managed to not say enough about anything. Which is almost as deep a subject as well, or as broad a topic as hmmmm. And entirely as conclusive as drat! Aw, the heck with it — let there be poems . . .