Pondering Pensive Thoughts

By Ryan Mimna

I recently looked up the word pensive, and I feel it describes the type of poetry I write.

Truly, no idea is original.

What are hearts if not pensive? And what are hearts if we don’t listen to them? Is any heart a pensive heart? What are hearts at all, if not metaphorical abstractions of self? Lofty introspections. Perhaps arrogant are hearts? Heart and soul? What is a soul, or these other abstractions? Perhaps, maybe, a pensive mood? In a loud world, how do we listen to ourselves?

Think about ourselves, rather than a baseball game. Think about the world and its melancholic, tragic beat.

How does it relate to us, and how we navigate the world? If you don’t listen to your heart, does it just beat? Mechanical are our motions. So what sings my heart?

My life, I define in a beating heart and pensive thoughts.

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Ryan Mimna lives in Philadelphia and works in the finance industry. He served in the U.S. Army from 2011 to 2015 and, after completing the Ranger pipeline, served with 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, including multiple tours in Afghanistan. After leaving the Army, he finished a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he began writing and later turned toward poetry. For The Havok Journal, he writes reflective pieces and poetry, often centered on fear, meaning, and the inner life.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.