Random Prompt #9

[Tiger the Lion]

Write a poem inspired by mathematics. Bonus points for using all numbers between one and nine. 

*** a reminder that prompts are not rigid. Poems about tablecloths, aliens or bubblegum will not be considered out of place. 

Go!

[Quixilated]

Homework Shirk

The tablecloth continues to rumple
beneath my math book as I sit, desolate,
the only one at the kitchen table.
For two laborious hours I have been calculating
how to slip away from this task unobserved.
Perhaps an alien ship will spirit me far
away from this planet #3 where children
are tortured with division and the mysterious
and missing Mr. X. All four corners of the page
are covered in doodles, five problems remain
unanswered and unanswerable. Miserable,
I wish for a sixth sense that would conjure
the answers, like magic, into the computer
of my mind.  Seven geese fly by the window
as I stare out. A wild thing inside me ghosts
out to join them, the eighth wild thing, free
with only sun and wind to worry my new bird brain.
But I am stuck to this chair like bubblegum,
staring at this humdrum task that I never asked
to learn. Nine months of school are far too many
for a ten year old to tolerate. “Give me Liberty!”
said Mr. Henry, I learned about that yesterday …

[Tiger the Lion]

Homework Shirk

The tablecloth continues to rumple
beneath my math book as I sit, desolate,
the only one at the kitchen table.
For two laborious hours I have been calculating
how to slip away from this task unobserved.
Perhaps an alien ship will spirit me far
away from this planet #3 where children
are tortured with division and the mysterious
and missing Mr. X. All four corners of the page
are covered in doodles, five problems remain
unanswered and unanswerable. Miserable,
I wish for a sixth sense that would conjure
the answers, like magic, into the computer
of my mind.  Seven geese fly by the window
as I stare out. A wild thing inside me ghosts
out to join them, the eighth wild thing, free
with only sun and wind to worry my new bird brain.
But I am stuck to this chair like bubblegum,
staring at this humdrum task that I never asked
to learn. Nine months of school are far too many
for a ten year old to tolerate. “Give me Liberty!”
said Mr. Henry, I learned about that yesterday …

Mic drop. I almost said double bonus points to include tablecloths, aliens and bubblegum, but you beat me to the finish line. Thanks for setting the bar so high.

[Quixilated]

[Wjames]

Exponential Decay

The last beer I opened yesterday
before falling asleep on the couch
with the lights and my belt still on
is half full.

I place the flat seven percent can
on the fridge door shelf beside the mayo jar,
avoiding the brown sticky smudge
from a long forgotten spill.

This evening, it will be my first reward.

[Tiger the Lion]

Exponential Decay

The last beer I opened yesterday
before falling asleep on the couch
with the lights and my belt still on
is half full.

I place the flat seven percent can
on the fridge door shelf beside the mayo jar,
avoiding the brown sticky smudge
from a long forgotten spill.

This evening, it will be my first reward.

Just cracking open a Boneshaker as I read this. 

[TranquillityBase]

It’s 5 a.m.
82 degrees outside
too warm to go out 
for pleasure’s sake
three hours until the day must begin.

I’m mostly awake
querying my doubts 
while the dog lays against my thigh.

Perhaps I’ll consult the I Ching
but that is more numbers
than I can take
so I retreat to a poem
to tell me
what I already know:

I’m merely a found soul
fixed in the form of words
I pretend to understand.

[Mark A Becker]

Simple math tells us
that the number of people
who have already died
will some day equal
the number of people alive,
and when that happens
we'll all be back.

[dukealien]

Al or Nothing

All numbers between one and nine
were known from very early time
though some who live in deepest trees
got by with digits up to threes
or less - embracing me’s and thee’s.

While others, more extensively,
ran single digits up to twelve
(as we would say).

But whence came that peculiar sign
‘al zero’ which is not quite nothing
only nought, a sort of absence
present in the Middle East
or India or somewhere
which infused all mathematics
everywhere, worldwide but leaving
just one question, since so many
lived without it.  Question being,

is it real?

[Lizzie]

Circle

The rain clouds arrived full that day;
you'd been gone for five years.
I popped open a polka dot umbrella
and watched the raindrops bead,
slide, then descend.

There's a cemetery on the walk
to your house across town.
A great maple lives there, encircled
by three vines of English ivy.
It shelters a weather-worn stone,
inscribed with a name the same as mine.
Her stone says 1876-1905,
the smaller stone beside: 1905-1905.
It feels unkind to turn around
and leave the two behind;
I'll see them when I return.

Around your kitchen table, 
you poured us tall drinks of soda water;
the fizz frothed and evaporated. 
You shelter me now like tree canopy.

You put on the record we know so well, 
placing the needle down with precision,
like marking the correct answer.
It played four times that night
as we came full

[Tiger the Lion]

you guys are killing it. I dug this up from a few years back. It's likable and clever, though watching it at a slower speed is less jarring. Let me know your thoughts.

[Mark A Becker]

Circle

WOW Lizzie-
That is one superb poem. Just fabulous imagery and sense of place.

These lines are crushingly good:
It feels unkind to turn around
and leave the two behind;
I'll see them when I return.

-Mark

---

Homework Shirk

Math- to the power of Quix  

[Mark A Becker]

Circle

you'd been gone for five years.

by three vines of English ivy.

Her stone says 1 8 7 6-1 9 0 5,

and leave the two behind;

It played four times that night
as we came full (circle)   love how this line ties back to the title

You actually did include all of the numbers 0-9. Clever girl.

There's more to this piece every time I read it.

-Mark

[Tiger the Lion]

( (12 + 144 + 20 + 3 Sqrt[4]) / 7 ) + 5*11 = 9**2 + 0 .

A dozen, a gross, and a score,
Plus three times the square root of four,
Divided by seven,
Plus five times eleven,
Is nine squared and not a bit more.


---Jon Saxton (math textbook author))

This came up a few years ago. The more I read it the dumber I feel. 

[Lizzie]

Circle

you'd been gone for five years.

by three vines of English ivy.

Her stone says 1 8 7 6-1 9 0 5,

and leave the two behind;

It played four times that night
as we came full (circle)   love how this line ties back to the title

You actually did include all of the numbers 0-9. Clever girl.

There's more to this piece every time I read it.

-Mark

There's more circles/cycles, although some of it's a little tortured (like the water cycle). 

I can't decide if I like this piece. It's too up its own ass trying to be clever -- a bit cloying. 

Thanks for the reads, all the same.

[Tiger the Lion]

Circle

you'd been gone for five years.

by three vines of English ivy.

Her stone says 1 8 7 6-1 9 0 5,

and leave the two behind;

It played four times that night
as we came full (circle)   love how this line ties back to the title

You actually did include all of the numbers 0-9. Clever girl.

There's more to this piece every time I read it.

-Mark

There's more circles/cycles, although some of it's a little tortured (like the water cycle). 

I can't decide if I like this piece. It's too up its own ass trying to be clever -- a bit cloying. 

Thanks for the reads, all the same.

I liked it. Thread is for exercise after all. More a yoga class than a photo shoot.

[Mark A Becker]

ya know Lizzie, that’s the rub. A poet does not need to like their own stuff, and most of us always want to change, edit, yada, yada.

But! when readers really appreciate yer effort, ya just gotta cut it loose. This one is already ‘out there’, and I absolutely love it.

It’s clever as hell, but the cleverness is so well hidden.

It certainly is not cloying.

That’s enough smoke up yer ass for one day…

-Mark