Of course you don't
belong out here—
quips the whipping wind,
but you don't
feel at home inside
big strange buildings either, Einstein.
What do you do? When you're
stuck in the middle,
when you've already come
so far—already
left your warm
bed, the artificial light—that you might
as well keep going now. Except,
it isn't that fantastic out here.
It's not rocket science—
or science fiction, either:
the difference between
the lunatic genius on the street
and that idiosyncratic one sitting
in the academy.
It's not particularly interesting,
it's not any one product, but the
steady accumulation of them
in what they call a process. It's
Knowledge—as one
exhilarating glimpse
vs.—as a long boring
stream of them.
But, where does that
leave the predisposed
man in the middle?
Besides—trying
always to make
himself the center,
with everything else gyrating
wildly around him.
Besides—lying
whenever he claims
to have gone to extremes.
Besides—unfaithful in all
of his definitions, other than
the one for—indistinct.