Ideas In The Clouds

I don’t have much money.
I only have a moped.
But I ride it like a chariot
through the alleyways of thought,
head in the clouds,
mobile buzzing with a million tabs open,
each one a door I might walk through
if the wind was just right.

They told me not to.
“Keep your feet on the ground, son.”
“Head in the clouds is how folks vanish.”
They warned me of planes.
Of propellers slicing thoughts like butter.
Of sky-snatched dreamers never found again.
Urban myths and whispered caution
in the land where sarcasm grows like vines
and irony drips from the power lines.

But I never saw it happen.
Not once.
Not even when Mrs. Dalloway’s begonias
lifted off with the breeze of a passing drone.

Still, they all stared up in fear.
Not of falling planes, but rising minds.
Because here—
in the place where milk costs $7 a gallon
and bees are extinct save for one
(the museum keeps it behind glass,
sponsored by Chevron and Monsanto)—
dreamers are dangerous.

Ideas aren’t taxed yet,
but give them time.

I don’t have much money.
I only have a moped.
But I've got enough clouds
to build a city
if you’ve got the courage to climb.