wjsullivan.net

Overloading the Machine

Omelet

I want to write a cracked egg poem with no yolk.
No, I want to write a jumbo egg poem with two yolks.

Toothpaste running down my freshly shaven chin
I divide my life into embryos of employment

and their locations, dozens of eras
dozens of yolks and the result

is financial and white. Divide
and continue, there is always more

to rerun and review. I don't need
to see the end of this show

the part where
like I said

how would you like your eggs?
Over

You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"