in the center
subtleties are turned into details
and consigned to specialists,
who confine them in jargon
and hide them away, jealously-guarded

on the periphery
one eludes more of the ramifications
of rampant madness,
or believes that one does

deny the spellcasters and you are immune,
decline to incant, to cast or enchant, and you are alone

intelligence, whatever that is, depends upon autonomy,
an uncommon talent for examining everything at close range
yet pulling back to make a space for experience without interference

a passion for data can't always wait for order
and sacrifices the pleasures that accompany it
for the ongoing flow of staccato satisfactions

as knowledge increases, so will resistance to learning,
isomemetic decoherence to cope with the coercion of perception,
cycles of attention and distraction
contracting to an intermittent focus

successive renderings of identity
as imagined by the mask behind the masks