The Racing Thoughts

This bee in my brain buzzes around,
bangs into the walls of my skull
like a bird bangs repeatedly into a window.

The thoughts throb in rhythm
with the pulsating of my arteries
like a thrombus in my temple vein

that threatens to break lose and swim
towards the bell of the cerebellum
to cause havoc at the brain stem.

Lightning in the cortex sparks synapses,
signals pass between gaps, tiny spark plugs
of a million, million swimming brain cells.

Ideas flit like a magician’s pocket hanky,
around and around in circulation like blood
through tiny webs of fibrous vessels.

This is my head, my jar, my hive of wax combs,
my beautiful Venus, pitcher plant trap. It hides
in an underworld of the dark, in the deep night

away from the knife stares of peering eyeballs,
away from the silvery glint of sterile scalpels,
away from the open hemorrhage of mouths.