stream of con·scious·ness
noun Psychology
a person's thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow. The term was introduced by William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890).

To attempt to write in stream of consciousness can be a scary thing, especially for one who values control. Who knows what they might find, when you loosen the too-tight reins of the conscious mind. Oftentimes, short of white-hot inspiration, to write is to calculate and carefully choose your words, and how you wish to present them to the reader. With stream of consciousness, one allows themselves to be led, instead, carried along by an unharnessed force of feeling-thought and something in between (Spirit)?

One might confess to others in code, perhaps, in ordinary writing, but with stream of consciousness we confess in code, to ourselves, all that wanders in the wasteland of our mind-heart. This process of 'unconscious writing' can be as terrifying-exhilarating as freedom. In a sense, it is closer to dreaming, with its wild abandon and irreducible symbolism.

In Ars Poetica, a remarkable poem about poetry, the great Polish poet Czesław Miłosz puts it this way:

a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
and stood in the light, lashing his tail
...
It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
when so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.

Below, is the tiger that has sprung out of my exercise at automatic writing

If I write what I feel, it’s to reduce the fever of feeling. - Fernando Pessoa

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Stale Ale

I am only a pile of words
atop a stack of bones
stockpiling ink-pressions

I am also boneless shimmy
with finely estranging eyes
amassing devastating adjectives

I am only a pile of words
artificially propped up
on bounced reality checks

Gone deep-self diving, again
hope bubbles break the surface
Hope, the window we turn to
when the living room turns on us

Or, according to old Kafka’s night vision:
hopes are merely mirages born of despair

Whittling away the hours

some daze better than others
time on my hands like blood

Hair today, gone tomorrow
these are the wily ways
of the pick-pocketing days

I am only a pile of words
sparkling whine
sacked in skin

Old habits hardly die
once bitten, twice sly

Weakened by the weekend
still can hide, but can’t run

How this must stink to high heaven
how the stench must upset
divine nostrils

Excavating gods
exhausting the patience of myth
clever nonsense, bloody pacifist!

Mustn’t mistake myself
for one who owns himself
I am only a pile of words...

© Yahia Lababidi

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(Images from Pixabay: Sea by Papafox, Letters by Wilhei)

This is my entry for Day 3 of @d-pend's 100 Day Poetry Challenge. To learn more, visit Steemit School on discord