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The New Math “Things like the square root of Everest Or how many times Byron goes into Texas,†Howard Nemerov To David, About his Education You cannot count on being anywhere, even between. You see, 'we' is not what we’ve been taught in Songs of our early days – even our last grimace, The sites of our devotion, what we killed and how, The excavated dynasties, all peeling back the veneer of awe, Leave us standing naked in the middle of the room. There you are at the marimba with the orchestra tuning And you page after page the score in your mind, Opens with her baton your beating heart And out from under wooden hammers and rosewood bars Flies the entire flock of nesting partridges. While down at the beach house, Dover’s cliffs white in the distance, Matthew Arnold links Sophocles’ pig to his porketta, The galaxies overhead inkling their assent, Light screaming silently to worlds without names, Worlds without llamas, mamas, rapture - sans cellophane. As far as what you know, you go. You know ocean, you whistle to whales. There is comfort in this; It is where the land stops and sea begins, It is shore, line, crashing wave, the susurration of dusk. Under the parapets of cliff-hanging houses, The inveterate sea inches its way into the clay You thought for so long to be inviolable. Our voices dusty dry, chap-worn-old-boot raspy. We are a song, you are a verb - Listen as the wind howls across your prairies. Tumble-words just keep tumbling thy gulches. Your stars outshine reticence every time. And every shuddering shoulder stops to listen. Itching with fever, blighted world of quietus. But what face is beneath the paint? Heaven’s harlot, the empty womb, the tender tainted cheek? This half-house, its white walls shimmering across the bay. Listen hard: you can hear the guitar strumming, Playing that old soft butter in a minor key. So, David, The square root of ever is yesterday; Byron goes into Texas just once. There is no remainder, ever. |
This Poem was Critiqued By: Terry A On Date: 2010-04-04 13:17:37
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Hi Tom,
What is behind this poem and what gives its theme is subtle.. In a world where one and one should equal two, intractably and in ways that can be counted upon, all of a sudden-
“There you are at the marimba with the orchestra tuning
And you page after page the score in your mind,
Opens with her baton your beating heart
“And out from under wooden hammers and rosewood bars
Flies the entire flock of nesting partridges.â€
All of a sudden, it is something different. It is like writing a poem, where it becomes more than the sum of its parts, metre, form, rhyme, all the elements of craft, touched by some almost miraculous inspiration that surprises in movement towards something more.
This stanza is wonderful by it’s truth-
“As far as what you know, you go…â€
And this is the poet:
“We are a song, you are a verb “
And what poet has not heard these winds?
“Listen as the wind howls across your prairies.
Tumble-words just keep tumbling thy gulches.
Your stars outshine reticence every time.
And every shuddering shoulder stops to listen.
Itching with fever, blighted world of quietus.â€
Almost reticent of the mask:
“But what face is beneath the paint?â€
Indeed, how much of the poem is the poet? How much of life is us and not us? How significant are the details we take as carved in stone when stars can outshine reticence, as though nothing can be so reduced that the something else has no part. (I don't know I just felt Steven's subtle influence on this poem in the background.)
Howard Nemerov (an accomplished poet) explaining life through the eyes of a poet would be that indeterminate. That you were able to so well say this has made quite a remarkable poem. The background of math, yes well, it doesn’t tell the stories so well. Numbers are meaningless unless attached to something determinate and even then, interpretation can change their meaning, away from the facts they claim to mean.
I felt almost as though trying to interpret this poem was like interpreting a dream. But finally, the subtlety of it began to draw its elements together. Now I don’t know if what I found is what you meant, but it is a wonderful poem, and well worth the effort anyone might take to know what you have said through it.
Some really beautiful imagery and a closeness to delving into the somethings remarkable about life. Of course, for a poet, the remainder is always the poem.
Wow Tom, first-rate poeming…thanks, thanks for posting it.
Terry