Confined Thoughts

Loose leaves in a metal ball,

A symbol of thoughts confined,

Like men in a shark cage steeping,

In the depths of the mind.

 

Ideas stain the limpid mind,

Even while it’s sleeping,

Ginseng or the scent of lymph,

Consequences queasing.

 

Into wide awareness, whence,

Like an engine seizing,

Society remits a shudder,

Showing it has feeling.

 

The divers all have shaving cuts,

And the future’s in Darjeeling—

Blind, the brain stem bumps the bars,

Of the shark cage, meanwhile, feeding.

 

The tea ball’s cracked, its leaves cast,

To catastrophic reading,

Ideas are too dangerous,

For they hold the power of leading.

 

My love adjusts an earring,

As I take her in my arms,

And think of Ukraine and Hamas,

And all the world's harms.

 

A stain attracts an eating,

Of my country’s changing heart,

And hell, where the blood is sleeting,

A world torn apart.

 

In this tangled web of thoughts,

In this intricately spun ball,

Lies the essence of all human fears,

The rise and fall.

 

For ideas hold the power,

To change the course of time,

To move mountains, to stir the soul,

To commit the ultimate crime.

 

As we navigate this cage of life,

Filled with thoughts and dreams,

We must tread carefully,

And let our ideas gleam.

 

For in the end, it’s up to us,

To shape the world we see,

To unleash the potential,

In our thoughts, wild and free. ("Confined Thoughts") by Courtney Weaver Jr.