Sunday, March 29, 2009

At Chartres

by Katy Didden

Who wielded the chisel
at the left portal,
south porch, the scene

of Theo chained,
naked to the waist, leaning in
to the brutal hand

of what looks to be
an even younger boy?
What man carved stone

to mimic flesh
as it would look inside
the torture of its flensing?

How he must have held
the scene in his own
mind, thought it back

to the act itself,
modeling the lines
with his own limbs

so he would know
both how a body
bends in pain, and how

a hand extends the flayer’s rake.
While I realize how statistically plausible it is, it astounds and disappoints me continually how badly people misunderstand and misappreciate poetry in their attempts to "interpret it", as if this was some joke of an English class.

"What does the grapefruit stand for?'

"A grapefruit."

"But what does it mean?"

"What it says in the poem."

It is something of a hardship to revel in my own improved writing while people are asking such questions. [These past few weeks I've been working a lot, and am delighted to watch myself.]Most of them seem entirely unable to deal with the complexities and subtlties of metaphores that are not childishly simplistic, one-to-one and direct, but also entirely unable to take a phrase at face value before deciphering the metaphore which may be there. It's as if their set of mental catagories was less nuanced, less developed, and smaller than mine. As if they cannot easily relate physically unlike things by abstraction, except in common, popular cases. It disappoints me.

My poems are good.

Monday, March 23, 2009

I would have been proud to be an early American

The writ of habeas corpus is one of what are called the "extraordinary," "common law," or "prerogative writs," which were historically issued by the courts in the name of the monarch to control inferior courts and public authorities within the kingdom. The most common of the other such prerogative writs are quo warranto, prohibito, mandamus, procedendo, and certiorari. When the original 13 American Colonies declared independence and became a constitutional republic in which the people are the sovereign, any person, in the name of the people, acquired authority to initiate such writs.

Friday, March 20, 2009

1. x is the greatest prime

2. Form the product of all primes less than or equal to x, and add 1 to the product. This yields a new number y, where y=

[2x3x5x7x11x...x[x]] +1

3. If y is itself prime, then x is not the greatest prime, for y is obviously greater than x

4. If y is composite [not prime], then again, x is not the greatest prime. For if y is composite, it must have a prime divisor z; and z must be different from each of the prime numbers [2,3,5,7,11,...,x] smaller than or equal to x; hence z must be a prime greater than x

5. But y is either prime or composite

6. Hence x is not the greatest prime

7. There is no greatest prime

Thursday, March 19, 2009

I have left the windows open while I am at school.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Autobiographia Literaria

-Frank O'Hara


When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corder of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out 'I am
an orphan.'

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

Friday, March 13, 2009

I enjoy the prospect of continent-wide DC supergrids. I think they're a good idea.
Everything is fairly nice. I feel I have always lived on my own.

But my jeans ripped in the crotch. I sewed them up, and they ripped again. And then my other pair of jeans, the pair with sap on them that I was saving for the summer, ripped in the crotch. But that was the end of my pairs of jeans, and I am wearing the less-illegal, sappy pair at school before I go to Superstore for some intact pants.

I've written a very good poem.

I am employed. Tim is not the only one who can suggest to a former manager that he be re-hired, and asked when he can start. I can too. I will hate it. But I will have money. Money is a source of more pride and happiness than I initially thought, even though I thought it a considerable source.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Happy Birthday darling.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Annus Mirabilis

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

-Philip Larkin