Physical Poetry Poem by Lonnie Hicks

The physics of poetry
is best explained in a mind experiment
in the construction of this very poem.

As I write the question becomes
what is the word-next and its origins?

Now what word-next can be
is a question of probabilities;
since if I choose rhyme as my scheme
and since the words which will rhyme are finite
and not infinite
the only question then becomes
which one of these will I choose.

Now if I choose a word-next outside
rhyming
then I risk not making poetic sense
since writing a gibberish word,
or one not related to the whole,
would be judged word-next nonsense.

Now we ask who or what in the brain
is making these two decisions
is it me or is it something mysterious;
is it drawing upon the past and memory
or from an instantaneous present
or even perhaps from my future?

Or is it just random choices I make
without even understanding them?

But suppose it is something we call
consciousness which exists
in the brain-cloud of cells which
can with millions of possibilities
produce a entirely new idea
which by definition
can come to exist
like language itself
and produce something never before said;
and now is being compiled in the brain
in this very instant and brought into existence.

That is humans have with language
the ability to create sentences
which have never before existed,
spoken or written because some languages have
enough words in them to make these permutations
near infinite and hence new ideas possible therewith.

Suppose the same is true of the human mind
and human senses make possible from this
this exercise we call
the idea.
So beyond the physical aspects of the brain
there must be a non-physical aspect we call
consciousness, the spiritual, or whatever
word we choose as its name.

Now the other half of the transaction
is even more amazing:

I just made up a new idea
never been expressed before
and can talk to you about it
and given enough clues
it becomes something you understand
and you yourself can write
a poem about.
This must be trans-consciousness
which is now a double miracle
nobody understands.