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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

poem in a notebook found under a seat in a trailways bus, january 4, 1974

reposted "by popular demand"

by timmy t jones

illustrated by rhoda penmarq







i'm special
i'm not like other people

i'm different
i can feel it

they walk around waiting to die
but they don't know it

they say they do
but they don't really

if they did
why would they care about nixon

or agnew or mick jagger
or sonny and cher

or hitler or napoleon
or jefferson davis

as for me
i've always known
i am going to live forever

because life is an illusion
and nothing really happens

except in the eternal brain
and i am the eternal brain

me
that's right - me

i used to go to the library
and read all the books
when i didn't have money for the movies

one day i was sitting at a table in the library
reading the doctor by robert southey
because it was the biggest ugliest book with the smallest print in the whole library

it was raining outside
it wouldn't stop

i was in the mood for a little panhandling
but somehow

i couldn't get up
i just sat there

i needed the money
it was time

rain didn't bother me
wind either

so why didn't i get up?
suddenly a great light flashed (it's always a great light, isn't it?)

nobody else saw it
because they were just people
just folks

but i was the eternal brain

i had another book on the table
my favorite astrology book, astrology and you by sydney omarr

and in the sudden flash of light
i realized i wasn't really a leo

i was the whole zodiac
i was the universe

everything happens in my brain
where else would it happen?

joshua and the battle of jericho
christopher columbus and robert e lee

davy crockett and the alamo
and wilbur and orville wright and al capone

they all never happened
except in my brain - the universal brain

i'll get up
and go back out in the rain

i'll keep on walking
and everybody else will die off

one by one
and then whole cities

i'll walk though the old and new deserts
until there is nobody left but me

and i won't have my hand out
i'll have it raised to the sky

it's always a great light, isn't it?







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