Space is curved.
The straight line
a Euclidian fiction.
The very fabric of space,
the skin pulled in upon itself,
Light follows this curvature.
Nor is time the heartbeat of angels,
as we once thought,
but our own shaky construct.

The galaxies that we imagine
to be real prove to be
archaic images,
things that once were.
When we look into the heavens,
we look back in time.

When the light of our star
has traveled in one vast
cosmic arc
and returned to its source,
we shall know ourselves.

In that dawning
light will fail,
the stars dim and flicker.
Time itself will falter
and the voices of angels
will be heard.

If all a top physicist knows
About the Truth be true,
Then, for all the so-and-so's,
Futility and grime,
Our common world contains,
We have a better time
Than the Greater Nebulae do,
Or the atoms in our brains.

Marriage is rarely bliss
But, surely it would be worse
As particles to pelt
At thousands of miles per sec
About a universe
Wherein a lover's kiss
Would either not be felt
Or break the loved one's neck.

Though the face at which I stare
While shaving it be cruel
For, year after year, it repels
An ageing suitor, it has,
Thank God, sufficient mass
To be altogether there,
Not an indeterminate gruel
Which is partly somewhere else.

Our eyes prefer to suppose
That a habitable place
Has a geocentric view,
That architects enclose
A quiet Euclidian space:
Exploded myths - but who
Could feel at home astraddle
An ever expanding saddle?

This passion of our kind
For the process of finding out
Is a fact one can hardly doubt,
But I would rejoice in it more
If I knew more clearly what
We wanted the knowledge for,
Felt certain still that the mind
Is free to know or not.

It has chosen once, it seems,
And whether our concern
For magnitude's extremes
Really become a creature
Who comes in a median size,
Or politicizing Nature
Be altogether wise,
Is something we shall learn.

At the ending of the world
there is a great unraveling
that celestial bow, wound into heartsong
and maestrate the caring music of things--
with these passions of the mind,
God seeking to unravel himself in the ever-fleeing
moment of philosophy, a Persephonic instance
in the archetype of love, psychotic and misnamed,
strait-jacketed in sin and given nothing but sweet
momentary decay

all the powerful souls connect sexually with the cosmos--
payed off, bastardized with a cigarette between their whispered lips
we hold no wealth but the ever-shifting dollar of life.

Fat Jack, fondly Catholic with angel smiles-- holds a rock of God in his hand, rocking softly
in god's busted gut-belly
spread like butter amongst the stars, asking all the same questions of Nirvana--
The last rumble of a skin-tight drumskin wrapped within a screaming symphonic twang of remnant souls--
Walking the notochord of corporeal form
the fantastic drone of rotorcraft, taunting the angelic lads and their brigadier God, singing psalms of limerence
Charlie Parker, musical sadness
Jack-man gladness
Don't forget them in the moment of monastic incantations

High-risen pyramidicals
Euclidian pitter-patter against the gusts and rains
in familiar, repetitive shapes the droplets of ichor
elucidate the frowns of downtown humanity
the locked door at the edge of the room, the air evacuated in fear,
seeking safety in the favorite belfry of an ancient wailing abbey
the dusty oil-towns of century ago
Imbibes the modern-day Maricopa plain
folk digging for dino-rock and black gold, selling dreams to downtrodden lost boys
the mistakes of RV park families

Farmland road
in Louisiana brew
the atmosphere, keeping personal thoughts trapped
a high-pressure zone
the ever-wandering
churning winds of eventual hurricane
the sequence that tickles Fibonacci's fancies and
calls us to dream--
a great Babel of God's consistent scattering heart.

in this great combustible chamber, loud obnoxious gaseous veils
in a low sigh our precipitate souls
smog on the failed shackles of stale blood
dripping this oil on the lips
holding friendly smiles
hiding sickening grins
callous, angry, the honey-chalice sought be not by man or God
alike;

Charlie Parker, playing the world's instrumentation
a track to follow
faded as the ancient road roaming
Rome's wet snail trail
blinking and shimmering into existence
a dewlit morning
the conglomerate rock is a cradle for human discomfort
admitted and hidden
to be a better hold than the hands of the earth
in these cornmeal roads,
digging out sugars from her *****
and sipping on the liquor of life in classic fermentation

to hold the road in your hands, the world on your lips
to tell the catacombs of love you would be her hostess,
seeking answers in the bones of ancient souls and refining
in deep sighs,
loving the things we cannot be.

meeting you was like brushing shoulders with
god – once i turned around to catch a glimpse
of you, i realized it would take a requested but
granted miracle for us to intersect. they say in
euclid geometry that two parallel lines will
never touch despite the fact that they lie on the
same plane going in the same direction. as long
as that plane kept us interconnected, i thought it
would be okay to let you speak words of
resurrection to me. as long as the roses inside my
chest continue to blossom and as long as you
continue to help pluck off all the overgrowth of
thorns, i thought it would be okay to let you see
me for the beast that lies under my beauty. it feels
like i’m getting closer to the truth, but further
from the one that i’ve been looking for. the big
picture looks a lot like manifest destiny collided
with continental drift.

there is something called the bermuda triangle.
this is not to be mistaken as a metaphor for an
unrequited love triangle. a significant number
of aircraft and ships have mysteriously vanished
from thin air, so they have made a name specifically
for the catastrophic triangular death sentence
phenomenon that lies out in the north atlantic
ocean. i think of myself as the one aircraft that
plummeted into the waters early. despite how
long i’ve been flying this aircraft, it’s the turbulence
that puts me at risk for something like this. i didn’t
know being one of many parallel lines would have
a death sentence. mother nature is laughing at me
as i sink, because i’ve forgotten how to swim.

i’ve become a part of the empty space on the plane
filling in that void until you eventually collided
with a perpendicular line changing your direction.
parallel lines don’t get the satisfaction of ever
crossing into each other. they are always at arms
distance. close enough to touch, but not close enough
to feel the ghost of their breath on our cheeks. we’ve
acknowledged that the other exists, but not the fact
that we could divert from our paths towards each
other. loving you was a learning experience. it was
learning that i shouldn't swim into deep waters, but
i shouldn't stand in a three foot pool. this is why i want
to know if there is such a thing as non-euclidian
geometry, if there is hope for us parallel lines that
will never collide with our soulmates.

- kra

A Meditation Upon Matters of Faith
And the Worthy and Diligent Study
of the Arcana of Mathematics
as Recommended to Industrious and Thoughtful
Young Men and Women

For Kyle,
Who is Enduring His First College Maths

Our Saviour never said “Now solve for X”
Such is not written in any sacred tex(t)

Saints Paul and Barnabas on journeys Psidian
Did not refer to topics Euclidian

The Corinthians were divided only by factions
Never were they divided by fractions

Good St. Paul wanted all to comprehend
The truth, and not some subtle subtrahend

But still…

But still (to me it is a great frustration)
Numbers are how we measure Creation

With them we plant the Garden that is earth
Building it up with word and work and worth

So that we feed and clothe and mend and tend
With crop rows plowed, panels welded, cattle penned

Airplanes launched, fires put out, and light bulbs lit
Messages sent – there is no end of it!

So brew yourself a cup of coffee
Find your Euclid and dust it off(y)

Work those angles on your protractor
Add, subtract, calculate, and factor

Apply yourself most assiduously
Soon you’ll be an engineer, you’ll see!

Admired by all, a man of great knowledge –
And it began in community college

Though some maintain that parallels don’t meet
And three-point-something is the sum of pi
And whether X is found; no one knows why
(Was it lost, perhaps wandering in the street?)

Curious matters all Euclidian
Even for the bold mathematician
Are as obdurate as obsidian
Each an illogical proposition  

To the rationalist impossible, and yet -
Parallel lines are at the Altar met

Euclidian rain dilapidated the sultry
The restful pull of Humanity
Separating the heavy stones of sin
From the face of sanity
We are what begin when
Time decides to breathe again
“Here is a scene that keeps playing in my head
It is sunburnt, the air is dead and the honeysuckle fries
As this car glides to a bleached shack.  
And I know that ****** means I can’t go back”

most feared most needed too velvet to define
sun rose world exploded sentience fell like shrapnel
best colors invisible which floor is your life now
no one stays forever be your own round trip memory
playacting sage fools the mirror
gleefully awaiting new chance of suffering
meteorite flames over sonogram star fields
arc of history bends toward dada
drawing cabaret voltaires from deepest wells
the attic is the desert where all stairs lead
clouds weeping bon appetite
binary keys locking layers of doors to the river
glad to have journeyed but never again
replacing the bell tower with gaia's echo
alternative hades ruling shadows and ashes
just down the street from the holy grail
euclidian tea leaves photosynthesizing archimedes
speaking ions across emerald deserts trapezoidal pop music
contagious future infecting tone poem multiverse samsara
surfing with psychosis across long lists of oceans
rolling out underwater carpets
juggling arrows on jugular veins of streets
no one in the forest hears one hand clapping
north star appears in eyes within eyes basement chin
gold buried rising water deep end dividing into silver portals