Snow started falling sometime late last night.
By the time we awoke, everything was covered
in a layer thin and pristine white,
and snow was still drifting, it was dancing on down,
glittering in the early morning light.
"It's pretty outside," she said,
and I looked
at this picturesque scene pulled straight from a book,
although probably not a book many have bothered to read.
I saw fractal snowflakes, bursting and bold,
spinning their self-similar sides in the cold.
Though, it behooves me to say...
Not fractal in the formal sense,
not like Cantor's middle thirds,
nor that box of Peano's,
and despite being apropos,
nothing at all like curve of Van Koch's,
nicknamed "snowflake" by some.
I saw a vector field of at least four dimensions,
temperature could make five,
or if you prefer, seven.
Another three -- maybe two -- if directional facings of snowflakes
are somehow important.
But that's harder to see
this early in the morning.
I thought about assigning each snowflake a color
and tracing the paths that each one would take,
to watch them unfurl like ten thousand dancers' ribbons,
outlining a dedicated jogger's wake
before tumbling to the ground to rest
along some stable manifold.
Better yet, I wondered if this field could be reversed,
if I could follow each flake back up to the clouds,
to find conditions under which
two that start so close could drift so far apart,
or how a pair that began so differently could find themselves so close,
sipping their coffee before it gets cold.
What was it she had said..?
"It's pretty outside."
I looked.
"I think so, too."
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 1:08 PM UTC
It's almost sweet, the way she says
"Oh, no, we're not dating."
But all the while, a wink, a smile,
and over the lines we're skating
that separate a dinner from a date,
until she restates:
"Oh, no, we're not together."
But neither have we, since the start,
ever really been apart.
There's so much more that we could be,
but instead, I just hear you say
the same things again,
and again,
and
again
until possibly we find a day
when we come to believe
that the words on your heart
match the ones on your lips,
which you've repeated
until they became true.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 9:54 PM UTC
Surely there is more possessed
than a soft smile
and knowing eyes,
and any soul is counted blessed
to know your wiles
and what else resides
in the honeyed morass that makes you you.
Yet, there seems no way, with wit and tact,
to express what I think
of an amorous call
while not being drawn to the obvious fact
that you make my drink
and really, that is all.
Another usual in the daily milieu.
Another world perhaps rejoices
in a time, a place, a pair who see
the flowing multitude of choice
beyond coffee and tea.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC
Sometimes, I get to feeling
so wound up,
Like an antique clock
with a nervous tick
and an arrhythmic tock.
A metronome with an off-center weight,
My -- first and third beats always a -- rriving late.
Like that top E string when it's strung too high, I shake,
'til on a strong downbeat, beat down I break,
snapping in a moment that passes too quickly to see.
But the last note I sang,
that reverberating twang,
my cry out: though broken,
I'm finally free.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 9:34 PM UTC
There's an entire field of math
that investigates how fast
things move, one with respect another.
From hydraulics to ballistics,
to scheduling and logistics,
to expected birth rates -
healthy babies, happy mothers.
You can model how disease
moves through a populace with ease
or with diff'culty, as coefficients vary,
how heat and energies diffuse,
or how quickly I will lose
your rapt attention, if I choose,
choose to carry,
always carry,
carry on the way I do.
If I carry,
always carry on,
to interest just a few.
But hey.
A passion's still a passion
no matter what you're drawn to.
And with some level of abstraction,
maybe we could find an action,
a reaction,
an expansion
that could yield a change or two.
Piece together some firm notion,
quantify that art in motion,
brew that bubbling new potion
that can build a better view.
Because there's got to be some level
where preconceptions start to end.
Where the Bell curve starts to bevel,
where your mind begins to bend.
Where names and labels scatter free;
it doesn't matter what you do.
Where fin'lly I can just be me,
where you can just be you.
Because it all comes back to how we move,
one with respect another,
always acting as behooves
someone with our label's cover.
Father, mother.
Sister, brother.
Pusher, shover.
Friend and lover.
Villain, hero.
Dime or zero.
Caesar, Nero,
or just a guy.
A **** a bro
a **** a **
The man who knows
every disguise.
Mathematician,
a physician,
a scared little boy wishin'
on a shootin' star swishin'
long across a midnight sky.
Theatrical protagonist.
Can you start to get the jyst?
We've got so many roles to play.
Who do we want to be today?
Just who looks back behind our eyes?
A Freedom Fighter
Wrong righter
Fire started
Broken hearter
Wallet stealer
Dope dealer
Narc
Cop
STOP!
For God's sake,
let it stop.
I've got too many roles to fill.
Just can't chill.
Can't calm down,
can't come around.
I'm so tired,
I'm so wired,
I'm so scared of gettin' fired.
So much **** piles up.
Please, Barkeep, one more in my cup.
And crank those fuckin' dials up.
Make chaotic volume flood,
'til the sound of pounding blood
in my ears becomes a mud
layered thick around the brain,
until that **** that's so insane,
becomes labeled as mundane.
Betrayal. Murder. War.
Ya know, I've seen it all before.
And I'd expect we'll see some more.
But that's okay.
I can breathe.
I'm listed here as understanding.
It's expected.
Let it go.
I'm listed here as undemanding.
It was for a blessing's name
that Cain betrayed his brother.
So becomes our choice of movement,
one with respect another.
Stationary, if not stable,
names fighting to define
people willing, if not able,
to leave their names' confines.
I know it could be simple
if we put our names to rest,
but like some aggravated pimple
grows my own list to contest.
I'm still a lover unrequited.
Still the guy who's ever-slighted,
I've got my Fightin' Irish side;
got both the drinker and his pride.
I still speak my simple credo,
have a Gemini's libido.
And by chivalry's demand,
will keep on offering my hand,
knowing full well that you will stand
without assistance,
and insistence
that you don't need help from a man.
It gets out of hand so quickly
trying to cultivate ourselves
into what we think we should be.
We wind up bring off the shelves
more than we bargained for
and in the end,
the labels wind up wrong.
While well-intended
all we ended up with
is a spoiled song.
It started out four hands together
plucking out a little tune.
Silv'ry chords you sent to heaven
on a morning come too soon.
But the motif
stolen by the thief
of our own grand delusions,
Our minds,
just as we trained them,
racing off to draw conclusions...
What was once upon a time
beautiful simplicity
became muddled by the noise
of the entire symphony.
The blowing brass and sawing strings
of complicated history
confuse the senses, turn our tune into
a blurred cacophony.
And so we quit that silly game,
'cause it could never be the same
after we banished every name
except our own.
Then we could be
free from confinement on the "who,"
the "what," the "why" of what we do.
with me just me, and you just you.
So it is shown.
Q.E.D.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 9:27 PM UTC