This falling feather flosses out my mind.
It’s quill’s fine filigree both stokes and quells
my fears, forgives the furor my thoughts cause.
At least imagination bids me think
this fancy true as any other held
by man and ape upon the watered rock

that we call Earth. Our cerebella rock
to reconcile impressions that we mind
forgetting. Stocked with false ideas we’ve held
since Odin was a pup, my conscience quells
at learning aught that’s new. I’m taught to think
tautologies, reject emotions’ cause,

progress the prelates’ calculus, show cause
in prissy predicates that place a rock
upon our wisdom’s grave. I truly think,
I think, existence is a grind I mind.
To forage in my heightened forehead quells
all chance of knowing truth. My hubris held

my hopes at knuckle height. In fact it held
me hostage to reliance on First Cause,
as if it mattered What it is that quells
the quintessential harmonies that rock
the rabid cave bear reigning as my mind.
My alma mater cringes when I think.

‘As well it should,’ I think I hear you think.
‘A shame,’ you add, ‘this “thinker” can’t be held
for eons in the maw of frosty mind
to nibble nuggets from raw ore and cause
a comic mudslide capped with falling rock
that hacks off gods ensuring that one quells

his run-on words, his Runyon swords.’ What quells
me quickest (I should know) is fear, I think.
So bind your thoughts, compress your sand to rock
and cobble walls like Hadrian’s that held
and gave the Romans pause (or did it cause
the Scots stay home? Whose haggis come to mind?)

The feather joins me hoping you won’t mind,
or muddle fairways taking up a cause.
The road to Hades’ paved with thoughts I’ve held.