*The Bifurcated Mind**

*

I. **The Echoing Hall of Thought**  

Oh, twin-tongued Mind, thou vessel split in twain,  

Where echoes dance in chambers dimly lit—  

One side doth feast on spectral visions plain,  

The other sways where golden records sit.  

A life in stereo, a soul in two,  

Divided not by fate but by design,  

Where shadowed screens cast phosphor ghosts anew,  

And needle’s kiss distills the grape to wine.  

Lo! One eye lingers on the silver screen,  

Where wraiths of celluloid their dirges wail,  

A flickering dream, a spectral, shifting scene,  

Unfurling soft as some forgotten tale.  

Yet in the other chamber, bright with sound,  

A needle waltzes ‘cross a waxen sphere,  

And fuzz-toned prophets howl, unearthly crowned,  

In waves electric, urgent, raw, severe.  

II. **The Twofold Feast**  

A paradox? Nay! Harmonized delight!  

A balanced art, a measured, knowing spell—  

To take in visions painted bold and bright,  

Yet drown them in a deeper, sonic swell.  

For is not mind a harp of subtle string?  

A lyre that shudders at the lightest air?  

And must not thought be twofold, echoing,  

To drink of song and sight, beyond compare?  

What folly calls for single-threaded gaze,  

A mind constrained to wander but one path?  

What tyrant whispers that we hoard our days  

And sip from but one stream, in solemn wrath?  

Nay! Let the senses twine like lovers lost,  

Entwined in secret congress, dark and deep,  

Where synapse sparks like waves of tempests tossed,  

And consciousness is broad, and wide, and steep.  

III. **The Needle and the Light**  

Behold! The needle hums its whispered tale,  

A mystic preacher in a humming church—  

And yet the flashing specters do not pale,  

Nor does their drama wane, nor ardor lurch.  

For is not life a polyphonic sprawl,  

A tempest of impressions, rich and vast?  

And must we not, to drink it, take it all,  

Devouring present, future, dream, and past?  

So let the films unspool, the records spin,  

Let vinyl crackle in the candle’s glow,  

Let static waltz with all the scenes within,  

Let sound and light and vision overflow.  

For in this bifurcated, sundered state,  

I weave my world from artifice and lore,  

And through this schism, wide and delicate,  

I live twice over—nay, I live once more.