a poem concerning John Nash, the math genius about whom "A Beautiful Mind" was written and filmed...
figure eights on a borrowed bike,
circumpedaling dilemmas like Magellan
in search of a lost meridian,
waiting for godlike fire to strike him,
as it has so reliably in the past.
He knows the lightning will fall
if he just keeps looping
in small closed figures.
A solution suddenly sighted,
he occupies his conquered cosmos
as brusquely as a beast
might claim a beaten maiden's virtue
(one more tiresome trophy
none but genius understands),
eager then to puzzle his way back,
planting guideposts for the giftless.
Like the master of his hanging gardens,
no mysteries beckon to him
to peel their layers away,
and be filled up by their pungency;
"There are only games to be played,"
his borrowed brain tells him; thus he informs
all the lesser gamesmen at the board.
They may prize him one day; Nobel may smile
once Nebuchadnezzar's seven times pass over,
once the straw-eating beast gives deity its due.
If not a vengeful angel, then who
cut down the overspreading ego in its prime?
E pluribus unum:
from the infinite the infinitessimal,
from the gullet that swallowed Euclid whole comes
a flat, plain circle:
Mother, mistress, wife, two sons. . .
one madness binding all in equilibrium.
Poetry by Mark Aikins
Read 577 times
Written on 2006-12-29 at 21:00
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Dysfunctional Math
The man cycles circles on the courtyard,figure eights on a borrowed bike,
circumpedaling dilemmas like Magellan
in search of a lost meridian,
waiting for godlike fire to strike him,
as it has so reliably in the past.
He knows the lightning will fall
if he just keeps looping
in small closed figures.
A solution suddenly sighted,
he occupies his conquered cosmos
as brusquely as a beast
might claim a beaten maiden's virtue
(one more tiresome trophy
none but genius understands),
eager then to puzzle his way back,
planting guideposts for the giftless.
Like the master of his hanging gardens,
no mysteries beckon to him
to peel their layers away,
and be filled up by their pungency;
"There are only games to be played,"
his borrowed brain tells him; thus he informs
all the lesser gamesmen at the board.
They may prize him one day; Nobel may smile
once Nebuchadnezzar's seven times pass over,
once the straw-eating beast gives deity its due.
If not a vengeful angel, then who
cut down the overspreading ego in its prime?
E pluribus unum:
from the infinite the infinitessimal,
from the gullet that swallowed Euclid whole comes
a flat, plain circle:
Mother, mistress, wife, two sons. . .
one madness binding all in equilibrium.
Poetry by Mark Aikins
Read 577 times
Written on 2006-12-29 at 21:00
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text
