acid thoughts burning in mind
spilt thoughts
overturned, overturned
i pay for this
bed
i pay for this
dream
amour-propre
the blue nile
flooding
banks
fertile soil
of nargis fields
flowering intentions
no-self, esteem
plunge, undercurrent
head out, a new country
one thought kills
your dragon
sleep wake
try sleep
wake try
Insight
Dissolution moves through substances that refuse containment. Acid burns, thoughts spill, a river leaves its banks, and sleep turns back into wakefulness. The broken syntax follows a mind that cannot settle; even “overturned” overturns itself through repetition.
“i pay for this / bed / i pay for this / dream” makes both rest and aspiration sound transactional. A bed can be purchased, and a dream can absorb years of emotional or material investment, but neither purchase guarantees sleep. When the Blue Nile later floods “banks,” the word carries both the river’s boundary and the institution that keeps account of what has been paid.
Amour-propre is Rousseau’s comparative form of self-love, shaped by how one appears in the regard of others. It becomes the Blue Nile: crossing its banks, leaving fertile ground, and flowering into fields of nargis—Narcissus poeticus. The sequence does not make growth simply corrupt; floods can destroy and generate. “flowering intentions” holds that ambiguity. Even sincere intentions may take root in a self-image nourished by recognition.
“no-self, esteem” breaks a familiar compound with one comma. It can be heard as absent self-esteem, but also as esteem released from a fixed self. The poem leaves the phrase suspended between diminished self-worth and the Buddhist recognition that no self exists independently.
The dragon carries a related warning. In Shunryu Suzuki’s teaching on the true dragon, the dragon carved from concepts can prevent an encounter with the living one. “one thought kills / your dragon” can therefore turn in either direction: a fixed thought may kill the living dragon by replacing it with an image, or a clear thought may expose “your dragon” as a carving. The final stanza brings that struggle back into the body: “sleep wake / try sleep / wake try.” Effort and surrender exchange places, but the mind continues trying—and therefore continues waking. Nothing quite disappears; its boundaries dissolve.
Image Credit
Dragon Bowl (1895), Kurokawa Eishō. Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession 2018.205. Made available under the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
