I write the first sentence

      And then the next

                             and the next   and the next

    pretty soon it’s just words, one flowing after another

 later it will be bright squiggly lines, blotches of ink billowing out

  I’m sitting on the plastic and steel car of a train

     which propels me forth, igniting the words

       and darts them out further than they would go otherwise

  At the same time, the words jet out having no source, no roots

 They don’t stick, just keep flying forth flames licking the

  sides of the tunnel and the iridescent blue bubbles

  freckling the inner walls under the River, under the Rock

 Do i type this up later?

         why bother? my thoughts have already moved

   on to something else, something better, the earlier ones never

quite having jelled  –  but do they really need to?

  the typewriter awaits at home, at the office, bug-eyed keys waiting

to give form and solidity to the ideas, setting them forth in book

bound fashion – why bother?  already enough books

  the jelly flux flow of words on the train

 the ink jetting out, the passengers jostling my elbows

  and skates, the pens, the notebooks spilling over from my lap

landing in the coffee-stained mud of the car floor the Rush hour birds

 Kick up the pages onto the platform surface, some falling onto the

tracks, blow into the tunnel, blow up the stairs, blow onto the

surface    out onto the streets above

  Jet Stream Consciousness can take no form

but simply sputters on and on making patterns

      like popcorn from the spigot at a theatre

        spray of water over the gardens and lawns of suburbia

    clouds of steam billowing up burly white into the winter air

              of the city at night

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Sean I. Robin is a musician, independent scholar, and planner. He was founding editor of Indigenous Planning Times, a magazine presenting multicultural perspectives on community transformation, and is the convener of the BIPOC Planning Collective. He has also been published in Progressive Cities (See “Introducing the Indigenous Planning Collective.”) He has worked for many years in the community development sector to combat homelessness and generate healthier communities. He studied Mathematics and English at Cornell University and earned a Master of City Planning at MIT, with his thesis Performance as a Means of Youth Empowerment. He comes from family of renowned performers and scientists, and only rarely do they clash.