Gray matter matters

Note: You'll see I experimented pretty radically when writing this poem, and part of it is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. I didn't quite master the new style or tone, but I was eager to try my hand at both.

The first line of this poem is inspired by another MTA "Train of Thought" series.

Here is the quote in full: "America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy."
- Samuel Eliot Morrison (1887-1976), The Oxford History of the American People (1965), Ch. 2 "The European Discovery of America"


History is like that—very chancy

Very chancy, indeed

A single moment     stays
in the cerebral cortex
Because memories are     chancy, too
They either stay seared into the cerebrum

Or       float     out toward — unconscious — a place
That can (only?) be recalled          through
Hypnosis // hypnobabble              and
psychosis // psychobabble

Mind over matter, medulla oblongata

Train of thought, train of thought
Lead me on, lead me on

Help me find you—
—before you are lost

Cerebellum, power on, power on,

parietal
lobe

Hi, I’m nervous,
pons
looking still, lobe,
                    for
memory        and
memories

Stored

Look for me, look
                           for
                               me
in the occipital
         occupied
         by thought