Where trains of thought go

Sunday evening has arrived, rain lightly falls, and I find my mind adrift,
Thinking of places to soar to, and using my imagination to write,
‘Hmm, this may take a while today’ I say to myself,
My thoughts aren’t as pliable today as I would like them to be,
It is being inflexible, a cloudy numbness and racing of thoughts combine,
Creating a grey, washed out thought process, that isn’t producing,
So, I’ll sit with it a while and observe, I need to change my energy,
Perhaps a little music, Medwyn Goodall, the time of ‘new age’ isn’t over here,
Drifting keyboards, a constant drum, beautiful, slow and methodical,
A trilogy of albums begins, I lean back in my chair, I think and listen,
The sound is soft, medieval, Arthurian, and luxurious,
This is where my mind has been hanging out lately,
Escaping from a stressful reality, self-loathing and worry,
Lost in a pagan dream of early English folklore,
Pan flutes and a soft synthesized choir swell,
Yes, this feels ok, I won’t be crafting anything fancy tonight,
Just documenting my thoughts and actions, which is ok,
My racing thoughts remain viscous; however, I feel calmer,

Should I even attempt verse within prose?
I’m not really sure how that would transpose,
After the observational typing of thoughts,
Jumping straight into a lyrical fire of sorts,
Well, I’m doing it now and there’s no going back,
I’ll just have to keep typing, and try to keep it on track,
Medwyn’s music helps me with rhythm and rhyme,
Softly and slowly his drum is keeping time,
I should switch back to prose now and finish this ramble,
Frankly, this entire poem has been a bit of a gamble.

Just writing thoughts is also creation, and my mind breathes easier,
As Druid, Merlin, and Excalibur, Goodall’s Druid Trilogy, comes to an end,
My mind jumps back to 1990, I’m 16, ordering these cassettes from a catalogue,
That same year I found my first tarot deck, dressed in black for the first time,
And I found a me that I was comfortable inhabiting, I didn’t quite hate myself then,
My family were all living, it seemed peaceful, life was simple and uncomplicated,
My mother had just been diagnosed with an illness, in four years, she would be gone,
And after that, just like in Humpty Dumpty, all the Kings horses, and all the Kings men,
Couldn’t put things back together again.

Although this may not be very imaginative writing, typing it was personally instructive. The power of music, and searching for the right words, managed to dislodge some suppressed and kind of uncomfortable memories. The surprise for me was having control over closing that door of consciousness before the train of thought ran itself off the rails like usual. That control is quite an achievement for a Sunday evening for me,  so, although not imaginative, I do feel better for writing it.

Thank you for reading,

Dan
x
The Druid Trilogy

The Disconnect

There is a new barrier between us, 

I built it to protect myself. 

I use this numb armour, 

So I won’t feel hurt any longer.

The disconnect has happened,

I exist outside of the world, 

Outside of the pain you inflict, 

No more will you have control, 

No more will you hurt me,

The disconnect has happened,

I exist outside of the world.

The Disconnect is an 11 minute ambient-mechanical-heartbeat soundscape that I recorded and released in early 2024. Based on this poem, the soundscape was supposed to represent the separation of the physical and mental human self, into a colder, more emotionless robotic form that could cope better with regular human interactions.
You can check it out on my Bandcamp page.

Aphelion

Existing in a brilliant white light, orbiting at perihelion, bathing in the warmth of the sun’s glow,

Basking in pure bliss, this should last forever, however, the mind drifts into deep space,

Thoughts fire like lightning bolts, sparking imagination, and conjuring forgotten memory,

Doubt appears through tainted thoughts, and erodes the perfect white edges of the mind,

The memory fragments, thoughts float away, and the last bright white vision fades to black,

Unseen hands pull from deep space, the mind drifts away, far from the sun, and into aphelion,

Icy darkness freezes thought, and the only light left is a glimmer of stars through icy shards.

 This poem was the foundation for my ambient electronic album Aphelion, which is part two of my Interstellar trilogy of albums.  I released all three albums in 2023, you can listen to the album in full on Youtube and it is also available on all music platforms.
For Reference: Aphelion, in astronomy, is the point in the orbit of a planet, comet, or other body most distant from the Sun.