Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

shadows in the periphery
taunting my reality, can't
seem to tell what is real today
actually a lot of days, this old
mind of mine plays tricks on me
was that a mouse ?
was that a reminder that
I can no longer rely on certainty
and we all know that perception
is reality, and so I muddle about
the house with these flashes in my eyes
in my mind
a game we play together
was that real or did I make it up
the memory banks are perhaps
as delusional as my iffy recollection
I'd write about the truth if I knew it

I've noticed something similar, especially if I quickly shift the direction of my gaze - I'll often see something strange & unfamiliar in the background, sometimes in motion before it suddenly comes to a stop. It's a perceptual error of some kind - I suspect it has to do with the brain correlating all that fresh visual data rushing in - what used to occur almost instantly now takes a little longer. It takes time to arrange all those pixels into a picture - and until a recognizable image forms, it can be a bit hallucinatory. It doesn't help that my vision isn't as sharp as it once was (and it was never that great to begin with). It's a little creepy & disconcerting, but I'm learning I need to stare for a second or two so my visual center has time to assemble a stable, coherent image.

rollin' with the tide
a snarl of neural seaweed
dancing along the shores
of my mind that tries to discern
what dashes into the corners
quickly
I stare for awhile as the cycle
runs through the possibilities

like the words
on the tip of my tongue
the picture
on the edge of sight

or the song fragment in your head
you know you know
but just can't place

had one of those
"I'll try to be succincter, but his mouth looks like a sphincter"
found out it was from a song by Sandra and Richard Riccardi
"kiss my rump donald trump"
now I can't get it out of my head

That one could find, much less need, a rhyme for "sphincter"... Randy Rainbow is one of my favorite Trump-trolling troubadors...

For me it's usually an instrumental passage. Last night it was a phrase from an old Don Sebesky orchestration of "Court of the Crimson King" - the rhythm section segue into the trumpet solo. Knew it was something in my collection, but just couldn't put the context around it.