My sterile lab of thought sits safe from strife
So therapeutic, at least that was the plan
I might avoid the sloppiness of life,
And ban lack of controls wherever I can
With care, into the stove I set my flask
To bake off residues of idiocy
And drop by dripping drop I start my task
To titrate baseness and acidity
And indeed I left the politics alone
Of crude, corrupt, confused contaminants
But their culture likewise took this tone
And grew without allowing me to dance
However poor the follow for the groove,
The only way to move is to be moved
(I’m not sure about the switch of metaphors at the end – it kind of just happened, to get the rhyme to work. I also don’t like the switch of tone. But whether or not it makes the best poetry, I think the switch from science to dance does provide the necessary shift in thinking to get out of the predicament of the first three stanzas.
Though I’m also thinking about the Aristotelian unmoved mover or the Chinese sage, who moves others simply through existing; that is, precisely through not getting mixed up in matters and being moved by them. The power of attraction can be greater than any applied force, which in some ways seems to be the theme of “Reluctance” below. Thoughts?)
