Insipid darkness
is no better womb for
thoughts.
Decent thoughts, maybe good
GREAT thoughts.
Thoughts that will flow
like the lava of imported electricity
not-but-should-be circulating in Gaborone's veiny grid.
But who cares?
Well, okay, your mother, now swearing
at the singed-black TV screen
(she's missed her daily soap).
Mother Darkness breeds thinkers.
Tell me, in the scramble for your cellphone flashlight,
did you find your inner Plato?
Ah, no, you surely became
a lightbulb,
humming with the shocks of unwritten words.
It is these minutes of lightless inertia when
it's best to tap your swollen top instead
of lighting a candle.
See, sun rays and tube lights dull the finish of ideas;
corporation-induced darkness provides more suitable conditions.
So you must tap the glass globe on your shoulders
and feel, yes,
feel the grey filament
within, buzzzzzzzz
Electricity.
Edison's 'Eureka!' finally
happening, as all 'Eurekas!' do, in
(literally) colourless mundane.
(Note to self: Write a thank-you email to that pathetic power corporation for your rebirth as a glow)
Thoughts.
Thoughts and thoughts, thoughts,
thoughts.
thoughts,
thoughts,
thoughts and
thoughts,
coming in viscous gallops,
extra voltage baby, thoughts!
Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts,
IDEA.
You are no longer living!
You exist as shards of yes, one GREAT whole,
one...brace-taste the word now...
idea.
You are glimmers of something greater.
You are hot charges of energy your country failed to harness.
Sparked at the flick
of a lazy corporation's switch:
they
cut the power which
cut the flow in the varicose veins of Gaborone which
cut your bedroom's plastic brightness which
cut the bored-contented moment you were wallowing in which
cut your breath (still-half-scared of the dark, you) which
cut the blood flow to your grey matter which
cut the oxygen supply, replaced the fuel with electricity
and then you could think.
Thoughts
and
thoughts
and
what will you do with them? If
you dare the sun's brilliance,
you might land up as some poor Icarus;
if you wait a half-volt longer,
I'm afraid the fuse will blow, madam and
your mother cannot comprehend these blue-light shocks,
please find a paper and a pen
immediately.
Ah.
So the electricity must, after all,
power something.
And in the crackling dash
to eke out your blow-blaze-brim-burn words
onto something that will last longer
than today's ration of blackness,
the power comes back.
Mind chars into itself.
Snuffed too soon, you pathetic power corporation,
why did you put me out like that?
Your mother turns to you and mutters
'Thank God.'
This poem has a second meaning too, if you bother to think about it. Maybe sit in the darkness to figure it out?
