A Hundred Bolts of Satin

By: Kay Ryan

Jorge Frias

At times, knowledge can make you insane.

All you have to lose is one connection

“All you have to lose is one connection” . All you need is a traumatizing experience to make you go insane. To make you not notice the difference between reality and an imaginary world.

And the mind uncouples all the way back.

It seems to have been a train.

There seems to have been a trackSymbol: the track represents the sanity of your mind. It says “there seems…” because the poet doesn’t believe that we were ever sane.

The things that you unpack from the abandoned cars cannot sustain life:

The underlined words might relate to Victor Frankenstein and his obsession on seeking knowledge. “The things that you unpack cannot sustain life”, all of the theories that Victor had on creating life were a failure, “The things that you unpack” would be Victor’s theories, therefore, they “cannot sustain life”.

A crate of tractor axels,

For example, a dozen dozen clasp knives,

A hundred bolts of satin -

Perhaps you specialized

More than you imagined

“Perhaps you specialized more than you imagined” this part of the poem states that we focus on reality more than on imagination. Someday our imagination will take over and It will use the knowledge that we have gained over the years and use it against us. At times, the mind will get tired of learning and it will just give up and die out. Insanity. At times, knowledge can make you insane.