Day 42: Numerology

 

Here's a quirky and cool little poem based on the 'say what you see' technique. Who would have thought numbers to be so interesting?? 

I especially love the descriptions of number 2 - 'a question seated' and number 7, 'a step detached from its stair.' Of course! That's exactly what they conjure up!

This was one of the first poems I studied in a poetry module at university - to show that poetry can be exciting and original and take anything for subject-matter. Here is a poem that proves the great improvising space of the imagination, the mathematics of precise description and the endless possibilities of originality.

Read it and marvel at the ingenuity.

Cardinal Ideograms - May Swenson

0    A mouth.   Can blow or breathe,

      be a funnel, or Hello.

1    A grass blade or a cut.

2    A question seated.   And a proud

      bird's neck.

3    Shallow mitten for two-fingered hand.

4    Three-cornered hut

      on one stilt.   Sometimes built

      so the roof gapes.

5    A policeman.   Polite.

      Wearing visored cap.

6    O unrolling,

      tape of ambiguous length

      on which is written the mystery

      of everything curly.

7    A step,

      detached from its stair.

8    The universe in diagram:

      A cosmic hourglass.

      (Note enigmatic shape,

      absence of any value of origin,

      how end overlaps beginning.)

      Unknotted like a shoelace

      and whipped back and forth,

      can serve as a model of time.

9    Lorgnette for the right eye.

      In England or if you are Alice

      the stem is on the left.

10   A grass blade or a cut

      companioned by a mouth.

      Open?   Open.   Shut?   Shut.