i is a number (I’m not)

i is a number (I’m not)

i has a special faculty it’s constructed totally there’s no other complex number that’s like that i was made up to create the opportunity to solve equations in physics what if i is the square root of minus one what if i DOES exist? turns out you can count on it to disappear once the equation is solved i made things possible that weren’t possible before	i have a special faculty i am constructed totally there’s no other complex being that’s like me i was made up to create the opportunity to solve equations somewhere, somehow what if i am a square root of minus one what if I Do exist? turns out you can count on me to disappear once the equation is solved i make things possible that weren’t possible before
solve equations create opportunities i will disappear	equations solved opportunities created i did disappear

The prompt today at octpowrimo.com was numbers, and host Amy McGrath provided a list of numbers that have specific connotations. My in house mathematician tried to get me to write about cardinal numbers, because they’re counterintuitive, beautiful, inventive and realising they existed needed a lot of inventiveness and creativity (all hail the fabulous brain of Georg Cantor!).

I, on the other hand, fell immediately for i… i has more poetic opportunties than I’ve used. Look at this:

• the powers of i repeat in a cycle
• dividing by i is equivalent to multiplying by the reciprocal of i

Doesn’t that want to make you do math – or write a poem?

If you like my attempt at combining poetry with science, you can find more when you click on the tag science.

Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpancha/2505656136

Cynical self help

No one
hates you more
than you

Some of us have brains who turn against ourselves. Those brains lie.

This one is totally off prompt – the prompt was colour. Obviously, this poem would be black. The poem is about many people I know, and many people I don’t know. Bless your heart if you don’t know what this feels like. Bless your heart even more if you do and you struggle with your mental health.

 

 

 

Obscene

I used to be me –
that was before
I turned into

boobs on legs

I used to be a two legged
two boobed girl
that was before
I turned into

a walking vagina

I used to be
a bunch of
secondary sex characteristics
that was before
I turned into

a walking womb

I used to be a woman
that was before
I turned into

a mother

It used to drive me nuts
My boobs obscuring

my brain

It used to drive me nuts
My sex obscuring

my personality

It used yto drive me nuts
my fertility obscuring

my humanity

I used to be nuts
before my womb
went on strike
my vagina
dried up
my boobs
sagged

Now I’m just

me

 

 

On being me (not John Malkovitch)

There are things I am
only when I do them
There are things I am
even when I ain’t

#NaPoWriMo day 9 and I’m having a really draggy morning – even when that word doesn’t exist. All words didn’t exist before they came into being. Even though I like the prompt on NaPoWriMo.net (“we challenge you today to write a poem in which something big and something small come together”), I’m not in a writing mood.

This is the second short poem that came from the day 7 prompt (identities, conversation). This one is about the difference between being and doing. I shared the first one yesterday. (Yesterday, all my poems seemed so far away, now it looks as though they are here to stay, oh I believe, in yesterday – See? Here’s why I’m not writing a poem this morning, my brain is having a life of it’s own at the moment).

Also, I’d like to feature Clairvetica today, with her day 8 poem called Jetsamina. I love it’s original subject mattter, and it suits my mood today: it’s about a spirit that lives in the greasetraps in the drain.