there is a type of brain (this one)
that does not get songs stuck inside
the songs pass through, as in a toy sponge
porous without the hold
telling, never showing
how to appreciate instrumentally
uncritical eyes absorb cyclical words
crossing fjords to find out what one is
but finding out nothing that could be conveyed
this is the status of a dead language: possibly written
but never uttered; the silence deafens a memory
sharpened by the stories of history
filing a violin down to a toothpick
with a vocalist trimmed down to a page
Roman Ryan 