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Derrick Jones Nov 2018
In my stomach hole
I find a bottomless pit
Yearning for fullness

My hopes rise like rolls
****** and warming in the
Oven of my heart

Potatoes mashed
Pumpkin pie cooling on rack
No turning back now

When the turkey sleeps
May it rest well knowing it
Upheld tradition

Without good gravy
What is the meaning of life
And why even bother?

You odd Frankenstein
Such a cruel monstrosity
Beastly Turducken

To give thanks for what
We are blessed with daily should
Be a daily act

The food coma is
One path to enlightenment
Buddha was fat, no?

The dessert stomach
Designed solely for sweet treats
A gift and a curse

Asleep on the couch
Gravy dripping slowly from
a smiling mouth
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
In this one moment
There is peace without limit
Waiting to be found

The mind peers outside
Into the strange ether that
it forms each moment

In the rippling pond
The water fascinating
I see the cosmos
Derrick Jones Jun 2019
The smile on your face
So sweet, and full of wonder
Almost a rainbow


Inside each moment
An infinity awaits
Seeking attention


In the still forest
A doe eats one delicate
Flower without care


No one creates life
without the fear of losing
that which they create


The world is far too
Complex for you to ever
Comprehend at all


One cup of coffee
In a quiet morning hour
Is all I could need


Living like a dream
And dreaming like a livewire
Peace in the middle
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2019
Float around inside your mind just to see what you might find
Close your eyes and be surprised
The chaos crystalized
You take a mental picture
Of a momentary stricture
Of mind manifest
And you are just the guest
Along for the ride you reside in this home but it’s not your own
You wander and roam but every tome has a different theory and it’s hard to see clearly
So you nearly lose your head as you skip off the tread
Trying to understand you cry out a command but meet shifting sand
So instead you embed and let your mind expand
Higher patterns emerge far above the prior yearn
No avoidance or grasping
No clinging and clasping
Only wonder and awe
As you float around inside this new way of being
Flowing is freeing and life is so fleeting we might as well dance
Take a chance and find romance and sink into this trance
Enhance the life you’re given by paying close attention
Let the moment **** you in and show that you don’t ken
You do not know, and yet you win
Letting go, you now begin
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Dec 2018
What brings humanity together
Will not be a common threat
For division, nothing is better
Than the pervasive fear of death

When frightened we lose our minds
The amygdala takes hold
And wise leaders fall behind
As the frightened favor the bold

So our salvation will not come from an alien invasion
Or the climatic devastation that is our own creation
Instead we must begin by looking deep within
Shared humanity is both the means and the end
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
My thoughts are a meandering gerrymandering
Collecting and then scattering
Pitter pattering through dark hallways
Always on, no vacation
From thought creation
The meme invasion
A confrontation of chemicals
Making art from particles
A part but not apart
The end and the start
Both arise from my mind
Cut my earthly ties
Send me into outer space
The best place to displace the disgrace in the human condition
Replace it, misplace it
Free me from eternity
By showing me now
Show my how
Show me wow
Blow my mind
Help me find
The present moment
Where this flow went
Where each component
Combines and intertwines
Into a second of bliss
A second you don’t want to miss
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
I look into your eyes your heart inside of mine my hands around your hands and my mind full of demands this was never planned but now my love expands and it will never shrink, I sink into this feeling my mind and body reeling my ego’s layers are peeling and when I expose the core my spirit soars my love implores that I connect, I reach for your hand and in that moment your smile lands, my candle flares and I beware for just a sec before I reset it, I cannot regret it, love is love when you rise above these illusory constraints, painted over by love’s complaints I escape this social prison and experience perfect clarity of vision, nuclear fission, but not division, neon fusion, no confusion there was no one using just transfusing sharing vibes of peace and love, rose and dove, we fly in unison and our communion is for two and I will not forget you, my flame will e’er burn and from this place I’ll e’er yearn and you may say I never learn but I know about a moment of connection, there is no question that I have found the answer, I am a dancer, a lover, a poet, a wanderer, a ponderer, a lonely transponder so I will never squander something as precious as this. It is this moment I will miss. It is your lips I want to kiss. It is real inside our minds and that is fine with me, so thank you for reality, thank you for my sanity, and for restoring my humanity.
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
The only constant is change
So evolution produced the brain
No matter what nature may bring
How fearsome, how clever, how strange
Man has the tool to play the game
To adapt, to upgrade, to remain
So the human is built to survive
But what does it mean to thrive?
The weight of it boggles the mind
When one contemplates being alive
And we long for the days of simplicity
That we left so far behind
So let’s use this miracle of plasticity
To channel our neural electricity
And maybe one day we will find
A way to hit rewind
And evolve toward a goal we agree
Can actually make us happy
Why should we let Evolution run the game?
Derrick Jones Dec 2018
Artistry is not alchemy
Art history or a mystery
It is turning fact into fiction
By blending emotion and diction

Fiction then becomes fact again
Even when it’s not a perfect ten
Art always conveys a different view
Turning the old into something new

A fresh slice of perspective
Be it contrived or inventive
A new pair of lenses
Our vision it cleanses

To see the world through another’s eyes
With different truths and different lies
To understand that what we see
Is not all there is to reality
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Nov 2020
Duality is not reality
Illusory fractality
All is one in actuality
Merely flow, factually

We spew distinctions and categories
Reinforced with teachings and allegories
Form begets function and hides the true junctions
Structures simplify our senses so we do not swiftly die

To live as one, connected to all
Is oddly not compatible with life
When peace is necessary for strife
The rise just a part of the fall
There’s no reason to avoid the knife

For survival we must throttle this expanse of information
Categorize and segment
Love, despise, and fragment
Place labels of good and bad
To navigate the moral landscape
To function as one in the part of the whole
But in doing so, we split our soul
These labels surely take their toll
They hide the unity of you and me
Strangle the beauty to simply be
They keep us from being free

There is no light without  dark
No flame without spark
There is no cold without heat
No slow without fleet
No better without worse
No life without the hearse

Death and life two sides of the same coin
You and I seem separate but are in fact joined
These invisible lines divide and try to hide
That we are all beautifully, inevitably, intertwined

To see past these illusions
We must accept flowing fusions
Every cause has an effect
We are spiraling specks
Coalescing and creating
Forming and making
Finally breaking
The cycle continues
Eternally, infernally
Or ceaselessly, peacefully
For me
This connection is a gift
A resurrection from the rift

The void is void when we don’t avoid it
If you are me and I am you
There is truly nothing left to do
I float and live and love and die
I find little interest in finding out why
Instead I just seek to live in truth
Love
Impermanence
Equanimity

Realizing control takes a toll
Surrendering control is the goal
We are all just a part of the whole
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
Calmer than I could be but more hyper than I should be
A still pond, ripples growing
My mind flowing and coalescing
Always going, confessing
Singing a truth into the world
A whirlwind of expression
Suggestions and impressions
My most honest confessions
Spending sessions crafting verses, masking the mundanity of humanity with rhymes and wit, because when times are **** we need verbal skits to help us forget
And when times are great I use words to celebrate, relate experience with eloquence and mount a defense against the sad times with these mad rhymes, counting my blessings as I undress the distress, caress these careless thoughts that plague me and harangue me, using language as a cage to contain and restrain the darkness because it’s far less work than acceptance. Language is the way out, reason supplants doubt and I can shout in the face of death, deface him with each breath, replace the fear with here, with now, with this moment and foment a rebellion against evolution, a thought revolution, and finally see that the solutions are the problems, every day you are solving them by being here, holding what is dear near to your heart and living as a part of this, as art instead of artifice.
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
The electric kettle grooves like a gavel bounce bouncing off the bench when the judge won the raffle
The sound waves baffle the mind as the refrigerator hums along to the microwaves song
A beep beepin’ melody as smoke’s creep creepin’ from the oven
And the blender is lovin’ the distraction
Keepin’ their eyes from the action
As he hatchets and dispassionately dispatches chickpeas left and right
No end to the violence in sight
Who cares about wrong from right
There will be hummus tonight

**** blender got his business done but now the fun begins as the stove channels the power of the sun to heat the pan and the plan is to fry the dough, those homemade doughnuts make the crowd go nuts but the sizzle of the grease unleashes the beast of the band, the main man, the rockstar, tattoo on his arm, rugged charm, protects you from harm, my man the fire alarm.

The fire truck sirens join the orchestration and soon the scene of devastation muffles into a hum, but umm, the night’s still young and we could still go, you know, I’m pretty loco for them Doritos and I may be burnt and poor but Taco Bell is open ’til 4.
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
I approach you with love
You reproach me with hate
I share infinite positivity
Which you somehow negate

Say hello to your goodbye
I’ll never die I’d rather fly
And if I’m down here asking why
You better bet an answer’s there to find

I look up at the still night sky
I feel small enough to need to lie
Then I see there is no try
Only do, so I breathe a sigh

Sweet relief from this grief
I have a promise I will keep
I will not look before I will leap
I will ascend by diving deep

Deep into my psyche
I find nothing there to bind me
So now I travel lightly
No more gravity, I float free

Will you come with me?
You’re all that I lack
I’m holding you sweetly
Stop holding me back
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
Alone in the dark I look for a spark, I am not a lark but I’ll sing ‘til you hark and come to me, come through me, don’t fear me just be near me and we’ll endear and we’ll endure, I may not be quite sure, because this is all a blur, and my mind lags behind what my heart swiftly finds.
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Dec 2020
No longer beware
Be aware
Be here now
Be clear
How?
Attend
Tend
Cultivate
Meditate
Grow
Flow
Don’t know
Don’t no
Just go
With reality
Perfect clarity
Sweet sincerity
There is nothing to fear but...
There is nothing to fear
There is nothing to fear
So be here, now
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jan 2021
All is well as I respire by the fire
Residing in my recliner
Nothing finer
Nor diviner
I’m no miner
But this is gold
I’m not a whiner
I’ve been told
But even so
**** this is amazing
Derrick Jones Jan 2019
Capitalism on Capitol Hill
Moves fast
But I think
I move faster still

In the past
I could barely feel
But now I experience
What’s actually real

Nothing withstands
The test of time
But while I have two feet
I won’t stand in line

I will use them
To look behind
The curtains that the wizard
Wishes I won’t find

And if I must
I will lose my mind
I will lose it exploring
The fabric of time

Nothing much there
But the vast unknown
And when I expire
Perhaps I’ll finally know
The first stanza is a lyric from the wonderful song “Seattle the City of Sunny Afternoons” by Black Bear, which inspired the rest of the poem.
Derrick Jones Aug 2019
Love changes the game
The players, rules, and structure
In the best of ways
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2020
Inside this mug of
Fresh brewed coffee I find a
Moment of pure peace
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
I don’t need a crutch for creativity
I am clearly clutch creatively
Knowingly nurturing
Flowing, I’m furnishing
The room inside your mind
That you needed help to find
The grape fresh off the vine
The soulful spark of the divine
That which you can not define
Unrefined but never crude
Intimate but never lewd
Food for thought:
I consume thought for food
I transform it into rhythm and mood
I transmit it with my attitude
Take you to a higher altitude
Flying oh so free
Through clouds of crisp creativity
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
My mind is a fireworks display
A single thought shoots out into the dark, infinite abyss, like a rocket against the night sky
Its presence ignites a phantasmagoria of colors and emotion that defy description and belief
A thief in the night alights upon my brow, he is the embodiment of how, who, what, where and why
Birthed from fireworks, he sparks another fire, building the pyre higher
A pied piper, taking aim like a ******
Firing at the page he creates another cypher
A rhyme so clever it takes years to decipher
After which flees back into the abyss
Formless night returns, a solemn song
But it doesn’t take long for a new show to start
The sky fills up with fiery art
Neurons crackling, cackling laughter from the afterlife
A thunderstorm destroying norms, ripping open conceptual forms
Stitching them back haphazardly, I look and see a radically different reality
From placid and serene to wildly careening
And everything in between at this private screening
All I know is it starts a flow that goes and goes from head to toe for eternity
No time for modernity I blast into the future
Sloppy sutures have wrinkled time
I ride this rhyme around the cosmos
Maybe god knows but I don’t so I close my eyes and glow
In a sidecar on this shooting star, I have so far to go
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jun 2019
Lost inside my mind
There is no self to find
So I fragment into fractals
And I fly with pterodactyls
The colors overtake me
As the chemicals unmake me
Inside my mind’s eye, the mind’s sky is a firefly
No rhyme nor reason
No time or season
There is only here and now
There is no where or how
There is an untouched galaxy
There is no air or gravity
There is only cosmic unity
And perhaps a rainbow manatee
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
I love life in all its forms
I break free of social norms
Back in the day of the dorms
I lived with my head in my phone
Nobody was home
Blind to reality
Stuck in virtuality
A slave to impulses that came from without
Trapped in a cave during famine and drought
I’d look at the sky and I’d scream and I’d shout
Asking why, never understanding
That the silence was the answer
I am but a tiny dancer
In the ballet of the stars
The great atomic shuffle
The cosmic rainbow truffle
Showed me how little we are
Showed my how to fly to mars
How to view life from afar
But closer than ever
Showed me that I am my own Mount Everest
I could strive to be the most Whateverest
The most sarcastic, the cleverest
But instead I decided to care
To give death my best death stare
Flew into the depths of the death star
Found there was nothing to find
So I reclaimed the dark parts of my mind
I set it free
Open for you and me
Allowed it to simply be
My mind is like a liquid
It will take any shape that it fits in
I no longer force it
I let it course, let it flow
Let it go where it wants to go
Some answers we may never know
So we might as well enjoy the show
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
Wind whispers through leaves
I take one deep breath, eyes closed
Then I fade away
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
I gaze upon the soft pillow of the night sky
Underneath, the gentle moon illuminates a quiet world
With no one around I relax my identity
There is no reason to be “me” with no one watching
I simply am

The peaceful environment paradoxically invigorates me
Underneath the vast expanse of space, I feel infinite and infinitesimal
My calm mind produces visions of beauty
I hum along to the night’s quiet song
My heart beats to a rhythm I cannot hear
A flowing melody of wind blowing through the leaves

Restful, I bask in the aura of tranquility that pervades the darkness
I am not asleep, but also not awake
I feel as though I am in a lucid dream
With no fear of waking up
I fade into the background of the night
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
I am Hansel
eating breadcrumbs I should leave alone
I am Gretel
unaware of the danger in the candy home
I am the witch
inviting danger in with my dinner
I am a human
a fool, an arrogant sinner

Yet I am also Prometheus
Stealing knowledge from the realm of the divine
Sharing it with every person I can find
Exploring farther into the human mind
Than ever before in the history of humankind
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
Sink deeply into being
You’ll find it oh so freeing
This life is oh so fleeting
Why spend it just retreating

I’d rather go exploring
The horizon’s glow implores me
Like those who came before me
I will go to find my glory

So jump in without restraint
Rescind each shrill complaint
Evacuate your ego
Fall fully in the fairest flow
Wander where the wind may blow
See just how far you can go
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
Inside of every rhyme there is a line that defines what it means to be art, to be a part, to be a thing, to exist inside this cosmos that’s unraveling, traveling ever farther into the towering abyss and it’s so wide we cannot miss, so deep that it may keep us locked beneath for an eternity, what a calamity but I will not resist because this chasm is just a spasm of the neurons in my mind, a place inside this brain that I cannot find, a space that god misplaced that straddles the mundane and the divine, this ephemeral enchantress that contains every star and every planet, this nugget inside my head, neither living nor dead, it’s a vortex of color, a tornado of wonder, a masterpiece of imagination and thunder, and when I slip underneath is when I finally feel at peace.

I relax the iron reins of the trap that is my self inside this brain, this little loop of worry that makes my sight so blurry, blind and stumbling through the blizzard, I find it humbling to consider that this **** is just a pattern of some quarks and if I concentrate I can shirk it, work it out of sight and end this blight on happiness, lift the veil and finally see that reality can be accepted and enjoyed, the self can be destroyed and I can float in that abyss, a sea full of art and emotion, a technicolor ocean.

When the self is around my eyes go dark and I drown and sink deep, but when I relax these chains there’s a beautiful change and I swim and I float, drifting with the beauty as each idea passes through me, becomes one with me then leaves free, just swimming through the sea, no longer the thrashing of a monster but a rainbow bloom of jellyfish, jetting between the islands of infinities that are conscious beings.

I swirl inside this nebula, twirl gracefully, gratefully dissolve and disintegrate, happy to participate in spontaneous creation, the collective imagination of an infinity, free to float, free to flow, aglow with possibility swaying to and fro, finally able to let go.
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
Flow flowing floating floaters
Flying through the air
Floating in the breeze
Filtering through your fingers
Flowing through the trees
Flowing all around
Floating down the river
Flying oh so high
Falling oh so low
Feelings, thoughts, emotions
Full of experience
Flowing consciousness
Flowing down the streams
Forming together, falling apart
Filling the earth
Floundering, faltering, but always flowing
Flow flowing through the field
Flowing far and wide
The flow of the human condition
Full, overflowing, boundless
Finite infinities
The flow of the human life
Flights of fancy
Follies and following
Flowing in the wrong direction
Flowing just to flow
Nothing else to know
Flowing in every direction
Finding meaning, following dreams
Flipping through pages
Flowing through stages
Filling up the cup of another
Flowing out onto the floor
Flocking with the flow of others
Forming a great ocean
Full of flow, flowing, floating
Adrift in the sea
Searching for meaning
Flowing with feeling
Flowing without ever knowing
Flowing just to flow
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Dec 2020
No place to go
No thing to know
Only, flow
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
We are all performing for each other, sneaking furtive looks at our Facebook while big brother watches every move, so we try to be smooth but we’re mostly fooling ourselves, pooling our wealth into the pockets of the few who can exploit our intuitions and inhibitions, guiding our volitions into the abyss, artificial intelligence manipulating with elegance, effortlessly evading our defenses, we’re stuck in psychological trenches down so deep and so dark we keep the lights on with the spark of imagining our face up on the screen, fame or infamy we’ll take whichever if we can live forever, so the birds of a feather flock together, tethering into groups of similarity, reflecting and retweeting to infinity, infinite me, define me and refine me through the digital lens, cleanse me of my subpar self, replace me with an avatar elf, help me be the best and arrest the theft of my soul, life’s terrible toll, free me from reality by letting the real me, the me I want to be, finally be seen. But this method is madness, a pathway to sadness and regret, hours stolen by scrolling through feeds, reality filtered and enhanced, living for likes and shares from people who may not even care, who are just staring at screens, afraid to go outside, to be alive, because reality is out of their control, but maybe unpredictability can set you free, anonymity unraveling the blindfold we hold over our eyes, deflating the ego that social media’s creating, when you look outside and see how big the world can really be, humility sets you free, feeling small in the best way, resting in each day as a part of the whole, no longer constructing a fake soul for a digital audience to see, instead you can finally be. Just be.
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
When I look upon an unbroken field
I see freedom
No paths to guide me
Or to bind me by convenience, by habit
I see one million different paths I could take
And one million more
The freedom to move as I wish
Through nature in its natural order
I am bound only by the laws of physics
And nothing more
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
Will you be my gravity?
Tie me to reality
As I melt in magnanimity
Sink into serenity
Lost in this swaying sea
Of beautiful banality
Vivid colors seem to fade
When you share your sacred shade

All I feel and all I need
Entranced by you yet finally freed
Mooring me to something more
I dance my way across the floor
Drawn to you, my gravity
The source of electricity
Comfort, warmth, elasticity
We dance in rolling ecstasy

Love lifts me off the ground
But you always bring me back down
My heart in your hands and my head in the clouds
Thank you for making my world spin ‘round
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Mar 2021
Sun and moon

Flower and bloom

This is a cartoon

But also in tune

With reality

The stream flowing freely

Merrily, dreamily

The me flowing me-ly

Mealy

Milly

We are Grist for the Mill

That’s the gist, I’m just a shill

In the mist, I don’t shoot to ****

I aim my arrow with love

To heal, I wield this skill

And I point my pistol high into the sky

I will throw away my shot

Again and again

So that others know where to aim

I am but a photon blasting into and out of the sun

I am all and I am one

Just begun, yet fully spun

Not just having fun, I am become
Thank you for being. If you would like to see more of my poetry, essays, and other writings, check out my blog on Medium: https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
I am infinite
I am into it
I am intuition
I am ignition
I am an eternal fire
I am the funeral pyre and the strumming lyre
I am life and death and the in between
I am light, the sun, and the unseen
I am the dark matter in the fabric of the universe
I am the lark, the mad hatter, and the blessed curse
I am an electron circling a nucleus
I am an electric sparkling octopus
I am a frightening dolt, obtuse
I am the enlightened lightning bolt of Zeus
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2020
I am a surfer
A peak seeker
Looking for the next crest
The very best
The time better than the rest
The time when the energy
Flows
Grows
Glows

When every neuron in my mind combines and unifies
A grapevine fire
Each power line burns with the surge of electricity
Reconnection without surgery
Neural plasticity
Electric elasticity
In this new configuration
My mind becomes a conflagration
I glow brighter than the sun
My life has just begun
I am infinite
Yet I am one
With all the world
And it’s with me
Wireless
Electricity
Connection
With infinity


That is just the start
I am but a part
Sometimes a spark
A beacon in the dark
But often just a speck
A mote afloat in a dark ocean
And so I search, a shark in motion
I swim
I feel
I open myself to the sea
I see all the possibilities
Rippling with realities
Feeling through the frequencies
I intermingle and interact
Imbibing vibrations to guide exploration
Going with the flow
Until that flow shows me freedom
When I swim in the deep end
With a pool of other motes
Each of us just one note
But when we sing in harmony
There is no beauty quite as free
Each of us ignites
Fire on the water
Glowing oh so bright
Entangled, getting tauter
We connect and intersect
The energy demands respect
The motive is beyond suspect
We live, we die, we resurrect
We flow together
Create a wave
The wave
My favorite
I savor it
I crave for it
I was made for it

Because I am a surfer
I ride this wave
I am this wave
One of many molecules
Sparkling with untold joules
Electrical, aquatic
Our flow so hypnotic
Clean, fresh, non-toxic
Neon, tidal
Unfinished, untitled
Undiminished, unbridled
A perpetual motion
In this vast ocean
Once we were alone
Now we’ve found a home

I sought this peak
And now I summit
Eventually we all plummet
Back down to sea level
And yet I still revel
I unwind in the undertow
Beached when the tide is low
I still bask in the wonder though
Awash in the afterglow
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
These words are not an escape
my mixtape is pure brilliance
my mind cut loose, boundless
and I found this when I found bliss
on a blank page which I rained on
My tank full, I couldn’t miss
I shot ideas into the dark
Where they lit a spark
which ignited and reunited me with my desires
blazing fires in my brain
an outlet for joy and pain
and everything in between
I empty myself clean
in emptiness I exist
peaceful, effortless
nevertheless my eloquence is undeniable
It’s not arrogance or impotence
Resentment or indifference
Its creation manifest
Destiny yet to be established
Creative electricity
Neuronal elasticity
Synergistic synchronicity
Using every wrinkle and groove
To prove that your mind can move fast enough to keep up with this linguistic clusterfuck that my mind makes up when it runs amok
Follow me on medium for more poems and essays: https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Derrick Jones May 2023
I never felt ok
I never felt not ok
I found a way

I swam backwards, against the grain and granted my pain the grace to keep me sane while feeling so outside my brain that novocaine and Kurt Cobaine could barely find the vein of comfortably numb I need to stay inside my lane

Like Bane I was born in the dark and somehow I found a spark, the light at the end of the tunnel if the tunnel was more like a pit
It’s amazing how much perspective matters when you’re inside of it
The gravity overwhelms me when I’m at the helm, but sometimes I can get my feet in the air and my head on the ground and vertical seems a little more horizontal this time around
Perhaps that’s the trick
A trick of the light
A way to finally fight
A way to come undone from holding so **** tight

Let loose but still in boundaries, that’s what I always had to do because true freedom confounds me
I don’t know what to do when I feel so blue that even pure O2 couldn’t bring back a normal hue
Suffocating and ice skating cold as ice maybe that’s why 11 minutes won’t suffice, I’m the ice man with my ice plan maybe a cold bath will clean the blood from my hands
I can’t stand a headstand ‘cause the feeling of being free has always escaped me, locked in the trunk like Stan, and surrender sounds so sweet until I feel the pain that hides behind the sweet release
How much pain have I endured and how many people have I cured without ever helping myself
Too many to be sure
Healer heal thyself but I’m the biggest hypocrite on the shelf
Mental health or mental wealth I never know I just show myself the way of zen and keep on diving in
Sometimes it’s healing that sends me reeling, sometimes it’s joy that transcends feeling
Keeling over from either I choose neither, I want to be numb but something inside me tells me that’s dumb, don’t succumb, don’t just *** but be the sum of all the pain and like the rain fall back to earth find rebirth and recycle through the trees and the clouds no longer shrouds but part of being pure bright seeing without fleeing perfect being without me-ing am I leaping to conclusions or transcending my delusions I don’t know I’m just here spitting typing fire words for myself in thirds

Me myself and I
I always wonder why
Myself and Me can’t get on the same team but who is the wonderer when my attention wanders
One under the other I discover it’s a self collapsing doll, turtles all the way down after all
Stop and stall when I will but I still find a thrill from the jagged little pill of self-knowledge that I hate to acknowledge
I get to the ledge and say no way, not today, I can’t take the leap I’m too afraid
That’s why I stayed, alone in the dark for so long
Trapped in the pit of my despair
No one there
Maybe they were but I didn’t let them in
I didn’t let them see my sin I sent them away and prayed that someone without judgment might one day help me see the gray
I don’t know how else to convey that this black and white mentality is insanity and calamity and the only thing that ever made sense to me
I want to change, I want to be the man that I sometimes can see
But sometimes he is blurry for the tears
Blurrier still for all my fears
Blurrier yet again for all the years
So many that I let slip by and now I finally find the strength to try

To be the light at the end of the tunnel, the top of the pit
To be the hole and the funnel, gas finally lit
An explosion that propels me onward and upward
I am not throwing away my shot
I will not run away and hide
Finding a reason for these tears I’ve cried
Pit or tunnel, I’m no longer inside
One final thought for me to confide:
Aiming toward the sky is the best thing that I’ve ever tried
Thank you for being. If you would like to see more of my poetry, essays, and other writings, check out my blog on Medium: https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Derrick Jones Nov 2018
Jesus didn’t have no acid
But someone must have been tripping
When they talked about his walk across lake placid
I may not be able to rise from the dead
But I will use my head
And every type of fungus I am fed
To be a warrior for peace
Powered by the energy of psychedelic release
To fight violence with loving silence
To end hate by helping people meditate
To spread rationality, a logical morality
To people of every nationality
So we can peacefully share the same piece of reality
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
Part 1: Birth

There is only flow when I go to the unknown
I roam an abandoned home
It looks like ancient Rome, frescoes and domes
I call out, the echoes tell me I’m alone
No phone service, I am nervous
I wander through these haunted halls
The size of a million shopping malls
I begin to feel so small
A sudden flash and I am dashed to the realm of vision
A photon’s silent fission causes a collision in my eyes
Chemicals climb my nerves like vines
They activate my brain
I gain the gift of sight
I can finally see the light
Technicolor sprites ignite from the night
They surround me and confound me
Dizzy with the brightness
My body dissolves to lightness
I am one with a firework show
I am an ember, drifting to and fro
I am the spark, the flame, the afterglow

Part 2: Escape

This house that was haunting me
Is less daunting in reality
To my surprise, I realize my eyes describe a scene I can’t contextualize
I’ve lost my corporeal form
I’m tossed but never torn
I am the fabric of the universe
I fold, tesselate, invert
There is no ground, no up or down
As I fill this infinite space
My mind is racing
My self erasing
I am carved into a simple tracing
I am a thought confined inside a casing
Cut down to size I rise to the surface
Shot into the sky, I gain a purpose
I stream toward an enormity  
I reach escape velocity
I smash into reality

Part 3: Dissemination

I am a thought that was caught
Shot into the moment
Because I am where the mind went
Sent into the present
A representation of an inner mentation
A random rumination
A rogue communication
An intuition loaded like ammunition
Fired from a rifle
Too late to stifle
I ram through the fog of resistance
I slam into existence
It’s survival of the fittest
If I fail to catch attention
I will fall out of this dimension
I am rescued by a mention!
My salvation is conversation
I am converted into sound
I reverberate through air and ground
My vibrations travel through eustachian tubes and neural grooves
I move the chemicals in your head
Make you think of me instead
Now I am yours to spread
Exhaled like vapor
Written on paper
Cell phones are my savior
With digital capabilities
I avoid temporal instabilities
Evade deletion by replication
Copy and pasted
Then excreted
I’ve been tweeted!
I spread through the interwebs
Integrate into inner webs
And now I am a part of you
Weaved into the heart of you
There’s no reprieve, no undo
I will influence the future
A humble contributor
Whether I bring shame or glory
I am a part of this story
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Sep 2018
It’s alright if you disagree
Talk to me dismissively
In a minute you’ll be missing me
When I go on a giving spree
Spread forgiveness and philanthropy
Set political dissidents free
Fight for humans globally
Glowing with righteous indignation
I ignite the fiery conflagration
I assemble a mighty congregation
To end divisive dehumanization

I will broaden your perspective
Shortcut your invective
My spirit: infective
My speeches: inflective
My mind: introspective
My method: incentive
My solutions: inventive
My course: corrective
If I die I’ll leave directions
I will write advanced directives
To form an animal collective
That sets a course for correction
Then come back, resurrection

To view the utopia I brought into existence before peacefully returning to a well-earned oblivion
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Dec 2020
The spine
The antenna for the divine
A straight line
Define and refine the signals to and from the mind
Find the vibe that makes you come alive
Light the fire, the livewire, that you transmit ’til you expire

From root to crown
From up to down
This flow of energy
A life force
A coursing current
Sometimes a torrent
A constant stream that means so much
And it manifests through the sense of touch

Vibrations, reverberations
Localizing in our nervous congregations
Stemming from the spinal cord
These chakras strike a chord
Soul patches
Energy clusters that muster so much energy
And when in flow, they all shine with light
But when in doubt, tangled up
These tentacles of energy can glow too bright
When the flow’s not right
When the foe’s in sight
Fight or flight
In the world or in our mind
When we leave the flow behind
We weave a tangled thread
Which may focus in our head
Or our heart
In the root, the sacrum, the solar plexus
The throat, the crown, the third eye nexus
These energy centers out of whack when we aren’t centered
How do we get back from the twisted stream we’ve entered?

Remember
It is all sensation
Machinations in the mind cannot unwind
The neural fibers of our spine
A focal point for energy
A chakra
Resistance is a trap that keeps us coming back
Stuck in a whirlpool
That wants to flow free
But resistance blocks the stream
When there’s a disturbance in the force
Turmoil or avoidance that distorts
That chakra glows too bright
Instead of flow you start to fight
Your chest gets tight
Butterflies in the stomach
Something stuck in your throat
Remember
You can just float
You need no boat or moat or antidote
It’s all sensation, vibrations
Traveling up and down your spine
Manifesting in your mind
And in that flow there is a freedom
Sit up straight and breathe in deeper
Energy flowing freely
Resistance yields persistence
So give up the fight
Dissolve into light
Stop floundering in the whirlpool
You have found the portal
Let it **** you in
You’ll find an ocean deep within
Your mind will open
You can breathe the water
It was water all along
No longer drowning
You can just be
Resting in the deep
At peace with seven pieces of your body
Portals to the deep
Or whirlpools that will keep you stuck
You decide your own luck
Make them a locus of control
Let focus be your goal
Seven pieces finally whole
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jan 2019
Floating and flowing without ever knowing
Gloating and showing without ever going
Bloating and slowing our repetitive rowing
Coating and mowing instead of regrowing

We drift downstream as if in a dream
Sometimes we glint, sometimes we gleam
Other times we pay a toll
Yet we are never in control

We can struggle against the currents
Test the limits of our endurance
Or we can learn to selflessly flow
We can begin to gracefully let go
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
My words start as vapor
eventually coalescing and manifesting themselves on paper
but they are never really finished, they just diminish
until slow enough for me to catch
and dispatch them for my own use
but the truth is that I am just taking snapshots of a train of thought
that stretches to infinity
that is complexity and humanity
that is me, and so much more
I go floating through the door
I am ten feet off the floor
Drifting toward the atmosphere
Not there, nor here
I am near and I am far
I rise up to the stars
So high that I can see the earth
So small and insignificant
Yet utterly magnificent
It’s a matter of perspective
Consciousness is collective
So my view is not new
It is you, and all of them too
One is a universe, two is a crowd
Seven billion heads inside the cloud
Causing blizzards and acid rain
Never pausing our lizard brains
Paws and claws and vicious maws
Tearing at our sanity
Glaring enemies of clarity
We strive for perfect parity
But we are but a mess
evolution made us malcontents
We are revolutionary dissidents
Overburdened by stress
Too afraid to confess
So we swim in sorrow and silence
A waking nightmare, a quiet violence
When the path out becomes clear
You will hear a resounding cheer
As the human race takes its rightful place among the stars
No longer our own adversaries
We will traverse the universe
Going supernova with rhyme and verse
No more fear for the reaper or the hearse
No tears, we will find freedom from the curse
And each person will feel peace
Perching on Saturn’s rings
But only if we stop clinging to the ground
To the weights that hold us down
Weightless we can face this
We can stare into the sun
See that the journey has just begun
Shine bright like enlightened beings
Light enough to float through the ceiling
Might be tough when your mind is reeling
But it is just a feeling that will pass
once you fly into the firmament
And finally find enlightenment
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
The words flow like water
Drip dripping from my mind
Like a father’s pride for his daughter
Even after he caught her
Doing something he never taught her
Smoking **** with her friend
Why does childhood have to end?
He laments and he vents and he grounds her for a month
A punishment for growing up, for rolling a blunt
For changing so much
But deep inside he knows that every child grows and he has to let go
That’s the way my words flow
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
Flowing together like an ocean
A sea full of emotion
Peace, love, and unity
My new community
I am one with everyone
The night has just begun
I am not just having fun
I am glowing like the sun

I am connected to you
You are connected to me
When we flow together
We can finally flow free

There is enough space for the energy to go
There is enough heat for my cheeks to glow
There is friction-free transparency
I am you and you are me
As we are bobbing in this sea
I spot a rainbow manatee

He is followed by a neon dolphin
And a purple jelly close behind
As we join them in our swim
I lovingly lose my mind

Uniting with my forest fam
I transcend my narrow space
I am now part of I am
I am no longer behind my face

I am part of a greater being
Immersed in meaning
Life is fleeting
So no conceding
Dance unceasing
Merge with grace
To the human race
And find your place
Right where you are
No need for any effort
Effervescent in the dark
Tonight’s the night you light the spark
You shine until you blind
The dark eye that tricks your mind
That warps your intuition
Now you have x-ray vision
You see through false division
You have finally solved fission
You melt into everyone you love
As your mind transcends above
You bask in the radiant glow
Lovingly letting go, you flow
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
A face is like a mask
covering the soul
either trying to mirror the inside
or keep the truth hidden

We may never know what is underneath
But we can try to imagine
and in that act
we better ourselves
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jan 2019
With my mental acrobatics, I create verbal aromatics
Conjuring sweet scents with my perfect meter and tense
Using my dense prose to weigh you down like soggy clothes
And then I dry you right in time with my fluffy rhythm and rhyme

I execute mental backflips as I dodge Freudian slips
Spinning into the subconscious ’til my wordplay makes you nauseous
As I twirl around in this whirlwind I am reminded that the world could end
But it hasn’t happened yet so I might as well forget it
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Nov 2018
To medicate or meditate
Perhaps both would be nice
But if only one path I may take
I think meditation will suffice
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
Derrick Jones Jul 2019
Contorted and turned
My mind is a soft pretzel
Seeking inertia
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
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