"approximation" poems
Is there an order?
In there an approximation of pi
circling our first awkward flirtations?
Does a dragon curve lurk hidden as I
caress the curvature of your spine?
Where does Euclidean geometry fit in to the
first time our lips met?
Does the Pythagorean theorem detail our most intimate
love making?
A quadratic formula for the shameful
discarding of punched in picture frames?
Is there a golden ratio that best expresses
hurried apologies and frantic entanglements
between our sheets?
I know for certain there was
a simple subtraction
on the day your tears added up everything
and finally said goodbye.
Some would say there is order in this
chaos disguised as order disguised as
chaos
Continually debating pattern recognition
or butterfly effects
But I’d like to think
We were more subtle than that
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 6:00 PM UTC
Only a moment ago stood a father
Keys in his hands to a truck that lost its driver
To a bad decision and a bottle of beer
Sitting in a dark room is a bed
That will no longer hold a body
Down the hall a mother breaks
Feeling the loss of a last breath
As if it were her own punctured lungs
Hitting the steering wheel
As water floods the engine
Two men stand at her doorstep
One refusing to look her in the eyes
The other apologizing for his words
That should never be said
For the labeling of childless parents
Before this moment a boy sat
Posed as a man on the edge of a bar stool
Consuming his death wish through his lips
An apology engraved in the fold of his throat
Giving an approximation to his silence
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 1:15 PM UTC
The shoes of a dead man
For you to walk
And his blade
For you to ****
Every page vanished
And every memory
But not the paper upon which it was written
And the dust
Under which it was hidden
Traces of direction
Windblown
A new future
Waiting for ripples to die
To see the reflection
And the form
That must be overcome
In the eyes of others
To determine need
Though not enough
In the eyes of others
To speak
Or live in silence
To write
Or to think
For who would listen
Or learn
From a man wearing a dead man’s shoes?
Because they are not wearing them
Only you
The blasphemy of discarding his past
But saving his presence
Is only for you to know
The willful generation
The one that learns from the past
But lives for the future
While others
Ignore the past
And die before they say amen
But not the man walking in a dead man’s shoes
Inside a book
Inside another book
Choosing the prophecy
That fits his needs
But not the worlds
Because they wouldn’t understand
Even if it was written in their language
Nobody can understand
Except the man walking in a dead man’s shoes
He knows death
And every word is life
So he reads
And prays
And does not bring who he is
Because he is not the book
He is only the man walking in a dead man’s shoes
He cannot hear anything
Or see color
Only the desperation that fills the void
Between men
And their confusion
That he is unafraid
And able to walk between people
Without explanation
Or justification
Because they wouldn’t understand
Nobody can understand
Except the man walking in a dead man’s shoes
So don’t ask
Don’t ask
You do not know how to ask
Or what to do with wisdom
They are just words
Words that amaze you
But cannot change you
Because to you they are words
To him they only describe
An approximation
A sketch
Of smoke
From a fire
That you cannot see
Or feel
Not like him
Because you are not a man wearing a dead man’s shoes
It is much worse than you think
Because you won’t confront it
You are insensitive
Dehumanized
The only ones worth living must believe as you do
Thoughts are life to you
Certain thoughts
Thoughts that may be right or may be wrong
Thoughts that cannot be described by one man the same as another
But thoughts that he will not speak
Because he is walking in a dead man’s shoes
Without the blade
For he does not come to you by the sword
For separation is only by choice
His alone
Without bloodshed
Without the desire of what you have
For he is not a thief
He will live without it
He will never take it
For his interest is not in what you have
But in what he can earn
And what is provided
As it is given by the world
As it is described
In the prophecy
That best fits his needs
Because he is a man walking in a dead man’s shoes
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 3:54 PM UTC
Drinking a Guinness Extra, an empty gesture,
Beset truly by the words of Joyce,
I am sick of the turning from text
To annotation. I wish only to read
A text as it was meant,
With the knowledge not aside
But present already in my blasted skull
It's like the modern appreciation of Shakespeare
—At best an approximation. The words that were
Common, fallen out of usage.
The words then invented, now commonplace.
Thither and hither again I will look
Tracking the details
Researching the clever allusion
Trying not to miss & missing anon
what's right in front of me
D.B. Guy
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 3:07 AM UTC
check it out check it out
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
it's da state of this here disunion
this here bangalore torpedo seeks yer minefields
this here suffering hero
n
crows about strafes
multitudes peripherally
****** blind prophets
exclaim
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
it's nothing but beginning
of beginning & z end of approximation
time's sweet angry subluxation
universal caving in on U & U
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
when was z last time U really loved
i mean really really really loved
ha i could only hold to z imagination
z skeleton z allegory z myth
'cause everything slides & falls
screams careens outta control
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
she brought in rrrrevolution.evolution.now
is z caustic effervescence of her wit
eroding my sandy castle of deceit?
ha and repeat ha
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
forgive-me-notes are written high
on z forehead of my despair
a cursive flowing interdiction
malediction cruxifiction err-u-diction
en-passant
in each pyrotechnic moment when we don't see I-to-I
on anything relevant to what we once hoped was us
but we continue dance dance dance
perseveration aberration indiscretion cha-cha-cha
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
she said *** is z engine of z world
like engine like world like ***
like like like
could say no more
oh it's tiresome to go on
describing that chimeric uniting
flesh-to-flesh-in-flesh eliding
we all are guilty of
do not end a line with a preposition such as
that or a proposition such as this:
given angle a prove that old triangle theorem
two simultaneous loves don't make a right
cherchez les angles les anglais la bon mot
ya know
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
when i die please bury me upside down
prone to z ground making dead love to earth ya kno
while the centuries lie down next to me
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic!
chic!
Jan 24, 2010
Jan 24, 2010 at 3:14 PM UTC
Communion of Soft Fingertips
speak, modern world
we are sketched in languages of digital bits,
parity shading certainty with probabilities of truth
giving us form and existence across distance,
distilled to series of warm, invisible numbers
frequencies divided step-wise, as Fourier found them
in noise amalgamated as information heterodyned,
left to be separated out, reordered
by advanced statistical protocols
that trace our borders with delicate, unseen fingertips
a description of new beings, relationships between them
uncertain at first in the short trails
of data they create
but there eventually - by the law of large numbers
or acts of successive approximation
we'll find them
revealed, like a pointilist painting
or seemingly random collection of string
whose elements are alone meaningless
unless we step back to see an entirety of mass
which we recognize immediately
as true love and intimacy
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 8:57 AM UTC
Through the miracle of meteorology, up high - little by little
parts of me was made, without form within a clouds middle,
and eventually, formed in unique designs, lighter than feathers,
temperature and water work together to produce, a period of weather.
When shapes, never repeated - but in approximation, begin to fall, as snow,
feasibly forecasted, sometimes not so, down on to the surface below.
And so as blanket laid, across town and countryside, fields and city mews,
changing the familiar, smoothing contours, into new landscape views.
The material soft, white glistening snow so miraculously delivered,
at earliest opportunity is introduced to excited shouts, laughter, and shivers.
Fittingly gathered by adult and children's hand, with the goal - to build a man.
midst joyful sounds, travellers moans and snowball fights, the creators plan,
By rolled ball pile and heaped snow I was born, created by many in several places,
some small and really, lovingly made. Others large with various, curious, hats and faces.
All - to stand appreciatively of of the makers time, to create me and proudly put on show.
Winter feeds our lifetime span with cold wind, colder nights and, temperatures low,
we stand as white statuary, where children play, soon - will come the expected day
a thaw, will take our sustainability of cool, and so little by little I, and others go away,
with saddened countenance creators watch as we bend, wither and slouch,
stoically accepting this is, as is. Snowy days will return, snowmen too, I can vouch.
It’s a happy sadness for snowman builders and snowmen too, who together
wait in anticipation for fun and creativity, the joyful side of snowy weather.
From a Snowman
Michael C Crowder 23rd January 2019
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 5:09 AM UTC
A first exclamation
Is it an approximation?
Of my imagination
Spoken determination
We are all in delusion
Sinking possibilities
Acting on this activation
A brain improvisation
A flowing dedication
Mounted city destination
Lacking in co-operation
Mounted evaluations
Investing the cognition
Is not the only direction?
Embracing the investigation
My convergence recruitment
Not even words uncovers
The layered entrenchment
Sunken lost in introversion
A day dream of absolution
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 12:31 PM UTC
shadows entangled so it happens
the oppressor and the oppressed
such an intimacy of pain terror and shame
in the quietness of the right hand the left hand
surrender to the cruelty of an exchange
to be or not to be delusional
this is a question
reality just an approximation of a terrifying
mystery without meaning
a beat of a heart alone in the dark
we have many songs but still little understanding
about the growing shadow lurking in the bright light
Oct 16, 2023
Oct 16, 2023 at 2:45 PM UTC
1+1=2
It’s been proven, it’s always true.
Let’s add some letters to represent the unknown.
Now 1x+1y=2
Please explain how?
This is a linear equation,
When we rearrange its formation.
Now let’s put it in standard notation.
Ax+By+C=0
1x+1y-2=0
What does this mean?
It’s an equation for a graph where the constant is always C.
Now to find a slope for our graph,
We must yet again rearrange to get y=mx+b;
Where ‘m’ equals the slope that we need.
1x+1y-2=0
1y=-1x+2
m=-1
Lets not forget m is also rise over run!
The rise equals ‘∆y’ and the run ‘∆x’.
If you have 2 exact points you can also use them to find ‘m’.
Now the average rate of change is much like the slope.
It is derived from the same formula but now we must develop.
Instead of simple digits we are presented graphical expressions.
We must calculate the average rate of their alterations.
A secant line would be helpful to move further.
A secant line is a line from one point to another.
By calculating the slope of this secant line,
We will have the average rate of change between two periods of time.
Can there be a rate for an exact time?
Of course and that is called the instantaneous rate of change.
Instead of a secant line we shall use a tangent.
Up against the point it will give an approximation.
The x values will be so close,
It will create a limit of ‘x’ approaching 0.
Don’t be quick to leave there is still more.
The difference quotient is an expression,
To find the slope of a secant line between two specifications.
This expression is then used to find,
The instantaneous rate of change or the average rate of change over a period of time.
I don’t mean to scare you,
But this is just the beginning of chapter 1.2.
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 11:35 PM UTC
Asleep in his cot.
Or so I thought.
I hear his restlessness
(No sleep for the rest of us)
I lie and wait for the inevitable,
His teething has been terrible.
He's about to start crying.
But the restlessness ends:
Silence is eerie when it is unexpected.
My tired brain seizes its chance,
Shutting my eyes on my behalf,
Forcing my body to relax,
Filing away my anxious thoughts,
But, no! Just as sleep takes hold,
My door creeps open.
There stands my son,
Or at least an approximation of him:
Doorway silhouettes are unnerving.
Then, a dragging realisation:
My son is just nine months old.
He cannot climb,
He cannot walk,
He cannot even stand.
The sleeping process reversing,
Adrenaline begins coursing,
The small figure approaching:
Staring and with spittle drooling.
I choose flight over fight,
Need to know my son is alright -
That he is not this thing of the night -
But the child-thing chooses fight,
Chases me, grabs me and bites.
It will not let go,
Its claws dig in,
Its breath stinking:
My son is my dying thought...
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 3:44 PM UTC
I wasn't expecting
your B or your C game,
certainly not your J or K
or any other letters
in the alphabet, really,
except that one at the beginning:
looks like a pyramid with a perch,
isosceles triangle with bottom arisen,
traffic cone alerting to awesome ahead,
space shuttle tip to aerospace action,
an upside down V with a chin rest,
upward-pointing pencil tip,
2D teepee with a loft...
or your best
approximation.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 10:05 PM UTC
Are you happy?
someone asked me
of late at just
the right
moment
I hesitated
What exactly is
happiness?
Not wealth
or fame
It is not
to be found
in dopamine
or dancing
through life
Not
godliness
ascetiscism
or contentment
But it surely feels like
an approximation of a
certain moment of bliss
that even now
I cannot fully
apprehend
AH 2018
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 12:46 AM UTC
This feels
Like the color,
Purple.
My tiny dancer
Shock blonde
And cinnamon sugar
Watching Saturday morning cartoons
Curled up in bed.
The grey daze before dawn.
Like goose down and
Razor blades
I’m enthralled.
Captured
Raptured
Rising from the dead
Of long, wrong dreams
Inside my head.
Could this be?
Could this be?
Could this be?
Love?
Or just a
Weak approximation of.
‘Cause the world seems to stop
Whenever she’s near
And everything becomes
Perfectly clear.
I perfectly understand that I
Can’t get enough
Of my
Fingers in her hair.
I can’t get enough
Of her
Artificial air.
Yes, this feels,
Like the color,
Purple
Like goose down
And razor blades.
Dec 21, 2010
Dec 21, 2010 at 9:21 AM UTC
A friend told me
she didn't want
to see anyone
Maybe that was
an approximation,
but maybe
it was only
a glorified
exaggeration,
and really she
just didn't want
to see me--
because I know
she is not home
right now; yet
her mother and
stepfather and
her dogs are.
So whom
instead of me
is she seeing?
and who
instead of me
is so loved?
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 9:32 PM UTC
It coasts on the dips and dives
along smooth muscle, contracting
pushing, friction absent
and lubrication self-perpetuating.
She called it a spiral, but
I don't see it that way.
It is funny how the little things --
orange and purple and white petals
strings of words together like beads
white-bordered photographs in sepia
-- are bigger than they should be
and shrinking into the smallest spaces
ubiquitous and permeating
reproducing
on and onward pulling.
How do you determine the area of a feeling
how you wipe it down like auto wax
all the crevices like jelly in the webbing
between your fingers
all the misplaced metaphor and you're assuming
I know what you're talking about
you're assuming I care.
I see them there in the bright lights.
I want to be with them.
I want to be a part of nothing.
I want something to be a part of me.
The circle is the mockingest of shapes
daring the others to find its edges
a noose for the mathematician
relying on impossible for truth discovery
the approximation to determine strength or mass or density.
A curve is inherently incorrect
and creates problems for the navigators
who trust cohesion and consistency
who trust each other in cohesion
and constant and consistent standard creation
who challenge the borders of the world
and braid together the loose ends
cruising on new planes.
I watched the wing fall into the water
into the lake, that's a lake, right?
It feels like it goes on forever.
Loud noise.
Open eyes.
Dart right and right.
Grab. Hold. Release.
Quiet.
In chalk on the floor, I drew one of those shapes.
I crawled inside of it, curled up into it.
I closed my eyes tight and held my knees together.
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 12:19 PM UTC
Cigarette smoke made
Your mouth taste like ash so
I dug deeper into your throat to find an
Approximation of honesty, caked in filth and motherhood.
You would bow down before the wrong masters and yet consider yourself mine...
And a good master protects his pet, respects his pet, Listens to his pet.
Do not approach me with apologies that are late and I will not approach with the same.
Nov 12, 2020
Nov 12, 2020 at 1:32 PM UTC
A systematic endeavor, fevered by a passion.
Each problem, an expedition, an exaction
Of effort, time and will
In the search for knowledge - an unimaginable thrill
Newton’s discovery, my continuation:
Formulaic substance for every situation.
Seeking an answer, no approximation;
Making up for lackluster information.
We derive and we discover
One approach to solve another
Number lines, number theory,
Partial fractions and Taylor Series’.
Natural patterns give inspiration
To new problem sets and exhortation
Of genius minds globally impressed
Continuously working, forgetting rest.
Limited by time, we take shortcuts
Setting functions is a must.
e, theta, sigma, pi
delta, lambda, (m)u and phi.
Theorems and laws aid in the discovery
Of problems unsolved, answers a mystery.
New methods used almost “unpredictably”
As thought by leighmen, to scientists quite reasonably.
Forgetting what was once thought
Simply observing what is taught.
The applications of arithmetic
Endless, when you sit with it.
From counting up a child’s toys
To describing the bounds of ellipsoids.
A vital piece of money supply
It gives us reason for color of the sky.
Stretching our minds to surmise infinity
Hoping not to lose our sanity
Consciously peering into the depths of life
Our battle for survival, an endless strife
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
You answered with a synapse
Startling my resolve with unrest
As I felt the change in the make-up of our ties
To each other. We'd built our nest
With texts and forgotten half-smiles -
Layered them with shadows unkempt
Leaking from our darkest sides.
It was an approximation to love, an attempt
By unwilling donors with unhurt prides,
To win the privilege of touch
Without losing sight of the lines.
Gossip didn't bother us much
We'd focus instead on the sighs,
Beats for our particular choreography.
But you've cut short our supply
With this silence, and now, awkwardly,
We fumble words, waiting for each other's turn.
In synapses like these, I ask myself what are we
When the memory of your skin still burns
And I miss your shadow on me.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 5:38 PM UTC
On your knees
You will worship
For a minute, an hour, a day
Elixir of the Gods
Closer to Heaven
Yet farther away
Facsimile, resemblance
Black and white dreams
Closed eyes and prayer
Torn between the emotions
Of the emotionless
Empty acts
Repeated motions
Experience or fantasy
Wishes or desires
Fear, excitement, and nerves
On your knees
You will worship
And it will resemble truth
For a minute, an hour, a day
The taste of honesty in lies
Will linger in the memory
Of the approximation of Heaven
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 2:18 AM UTC
Cancer.
A word no one wants to hear.
Unless, of course you are talking about the astrological sign where it is said for you to be known for your loyalty, caring, and adapting qualities.
Cancer.
A word I never wanted to hear.
It was August.
My father and I had grown apart, once again.
We could never agree on anything, it didn’t matter what it was.
Gay rights, politics, the existence of God, these were only some of the topics we argued about, constantly.
I remember saying things like, “I hate you!” and “I wish you were out of my life forever.”
“I hope you die.”
I hope you die.
Four simple words. Horrible words.
Words I only said once out of anger.
Add never between you and die and you completely change the meaning.
Later on, I would wish that I had added the never.
I was listening to the song “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” at full volume trying to block out my mother and fathers fight.
Only now do I see the irony.
My parents left the room.
I listened as hard as I possibly could only to make out the words, Malignant Lymphoma.
My world would completely change that August.
They say that when someone is diagnosed with cancer, everyone around them is as well. I never understood that, it wasn’t me that was dying, until I saw him come home from his first cancer treatment.
He was exhausted, my father, the man of steel could barely stand.
My life became morphed into the what ifs. What if he doesn’t make it? What if I lose my dad?
My life became mutated into a twisted picture as I tried to find every answer in text books and statistics.
18,990 people die from this cancer every year.
My dad always joked he would never make it to see 51…he was 49.
My mom broke down, often, gasping in air as if she would never breathe in again.
As if, she had forgotten how.
I stopped breathing. I had no estimation or approximation of when I would breathe in again.
Malignant Lymphoma. Cancer. Dying.
Those three words were all that I could think about.
I wanted to escape. I wanted to pretend like I was clueless. They say that ignorance is bliss.
I think that was about the time I stopped believing in God.
That night, as I tried to bring myself to pray, the words got stuck in my throat.
I couldn’t understand why.
Soon, treatment began, was unsuccessful, and now the cancer is spreading. .
That’s the thing about lymphoma.
It doesn’t go away.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 10:39 AM UTC
Instead of being born
you were given an approximation,
a number, and a grand lock
in a world made of half truths
and the whole a great salt ocean
that you will not tread
When you finally reach the surface
choking and gasping on salt water
you may realize your fatal error
and the god of wind won't fill your sails
he won't even grace your cheek
with a loving breeze of a hand
In death you may find no peace
only the absence of a body
drifting in a bitter daylight
halved and hollow hearted
all forms of life seek the simplest existence
nothing
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
I would trust a word,
only when I could
go beyond it's
crusty outer shell,
fleshy girth, as well
and feel the heart
pulsating, making
red blood coursing
through the veins
speaking earnest truth
as heart beats,
what makes all words
other than this one
redundant, for that
moment in time,
stops my heart
with wonder,happiness
grief or ebullience
or many a other shades
when I intimately
knows that word.
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 7:16 AM UTC
Have you ever pretended a guy was interesting?
Have you slow danced and let him sniff you up close?
It gives you somewhere to go, if you decide to.
Or given a little kiss—nothing slutty in that.
You know, a 'person' isn’t a good kisser - it takes two.
I’m not talking about me, of course.
There’s a two-way interrogation going on
complete with our own internal narratives
—we reenact it’s rituals in the strangest places
Like quiet libraries or the lerch and spin of a dance club
we process by analogy and approximation and it works
until it doesn’t, like cold water poured into a glass.
Then we settle back into the dull rhythms of study
I’m not talking about me, of course.
.
.
Songs for this:
This Girl's In Love (Live At HMH) by Trijntje Oosterhuis
The Men of Your Dreams by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
Jan 6, 2025
Jan 6, 2025 at 9:00 PM UTC