I have figured things out this week and find myself focusing on matters mathematical. I could have gone with a Fibonacci Poem again, but I decided to look elsewhere within the fascinating world of mathematics to find my connection. Here are three little poems owing their existence to various mathematical inspirations. They were quietly nestling in my poetry vault, but I found them when it counted. Go figure... Figure It Out One stands by itself Two makes a couple Three gives us a crowd Four sends us to the corners Five gives us golden rings Six can be hit out of the park Seven is heavenly Eight comes with easy pieces Nine gives a cat lives Ten likes green bottles I figure that’s enough. Alan j Wright Zero No beginning or end No tail to descend Like a hole in Swiss Cheese With no corners No one’s lucky number it must be said You unfortunately have amounted to nothing But I like the way you stand Between positive And negative So well roun...
This is another example of prose poetry. The poem owes its origins to real events that occurred during an Australian summer when I was a teenager. It is strange to be recalling a summertime event in the middle of an Australian winter, but it was an unforgettable time and it often resurfaces, particularly when I revisit my old home town. During that long ago summer, a string of hot summer days -a heat wave was ours to endure. A summer that left the landscape parched and dry and communities exposed to the potential of devastating bush fires. And so it transpired... The poem is presented in two stanzas; blocks of texts representing the before and after aspects of the event. A Summer Blaze During my fourteenth summer a January bushfire tried to erase our small town. It poked its flaming head above the ridge line, consumed a pine plantation then down the slope it raced, hot and voracious. Acrid smoke surrounded our homes, our streets, our every tiny space. Live e...