I study myself more than any other subject; ’tis my metaphysics, ’tis my physics.
          —Montaigne¹

Baby, sages are saying to give in,
that I exhibit too much interest,
won’t leave it alone, that the dog I bone
is playing me for a fool, but you dig

what I do & I know too little about
modesty to let it go. Withholding
nothing but the beat, somewhere between two
atria, two ventricles & four valves deep

cuts receive in vain heavy rotation,
circulating currents we swallow down,
straining the system with the sound of one
feigned ache paining the same refrain fuse-blown

with the efficiency of synched rhythms
giving it to this drum of my heart honed

in on the seventy-to-eighty spins
my disbelief needs. Repeats per minute
knee-weakening needles bleeding open
letters I pen, sticking under skin these

secrets my ink weeps over and over
again. Won’t repent of this medicine,
sir, not until what grows on me gets old,
head worn out from getting to know only

too well so intimately, from within
& completely, my Self the way I know what
I want to say & won’t back down. Inaction
breeds discontent worse than standing alone

on the more unpopular side of an
argument does, leaves unspoken truth’s tone.

__________
¹Michel de Montaigne, “Of Experience”, from “Essays of Michael, Seigneur de Montaigne: The Third Book” in The Works of Michael de Montaigne; Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy. With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices, &c., &c. By William Hazlitt. Sixth Edition, published at Philadelphia by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1860; page 523.