Page 22 - WTP Vol. VIII #3

JoHn TimoTHy robinson
On the Estate of Thoughts
We tend to think of thoughts
as if they were our own, self-contained and certain,
like phthalo blue or red, iron oxide,
as if the sun were brass instead of gas.
Thoughts appear as they are not,
though we believe they form in mind
as part of active predicates.
Somehow the brain nominates,
retains each form almost as well as our own voices.
Can you own a voice?
Even forgotten thoughts
can be recalled from corroded notions,
forgotten again,
as if when remembered,
they confirm that what was lost has always been one’s own.
Maybe they are utterly lost,
and we remember something new each time, muttering words raw as umber,
deep in the lamp black of learning,
that we own so little,
that we know even less.
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Robinson is from the Kanawha Valley in Mason County, West Virginia. His work has appeared in numerous journals in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, and Poland. His prints and photographs have also appeared in electronic and print journals in the United States, Italy, and Ireland. Recent work can be found in PCC Inscape Magazine, Mantis, Crossroads: A Journal of English Studies, and The MacGuffin.