Let's workshop this poem about how cautionary instincts, wise and deeply-rooted in the herd, can have a stifling effect on individual genius and innovative progress.
Oontz Oontz
Jazzy visionaries, brainiacs
nuzzling syncopation,
drowned out by mob baby rhythm—
the collective instinct
(that gnawing-mauling danger
lies in unconservative progress)
etched into our hearts before
we were even skittish chimps
huddled in nighttime trees.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right).