What Rodney Jones is arguing in this poem is that once you let go of an idea its really hard almost impossible to get it back. Just like dumping the coconut milk and rum into the ocean sure he felt it wash over him but there was no way for him to ever get it back. Once it was gone it was gone. The ocean took it away.
He didnt know if he was finished with his idea, but that uncertainty came too late. Once he made the conscious choice to get rid of it, it was gone. However he said he still had the idea that he would get it back. That hope of getting what was his was less than slim to none. He wouldnt ever get it back but the idea remained.
Thank you for the thoughtful and intelligent post. Have you considered, however, the possibility that somehow, within the waves, he could grasp some of the fragments that were scattered? An idea, after all, can not be completely expunged from memory. . .I mention this because you say that he made the conscious choice to get rid of it; perhaps he only wanted to forget it because he wanted to reduce his "hubris" but in reality, if this old idea is scattered into the ocean, another idea will take its place and hubris will come back again.
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