Thursday, January 31, 2008

Untitled

OUR BODY
proposes
an algebra
which has
no solution

-Paul Nouge, from "Sketches of the Human Body"

2 comments:

Adam said...

ah

but what sweet tangles of curves and tangents, and imaginary, radical, and irrational numbers bubble forth from the living of the questions of that bio-algebra.

hail the court of miracles!

Anonymous said...

VIII of Bobo's Metamorphosis
by Czeslaw Milosz

Between her and me there was a table, on the table a glass.
The chapped skin of her elbows touched the shining surface
In which the contour of shade under her armpit was reflected.
A drop of sweat thickened over her wavy lip.
And the space between her and me fractionalized itself infinitely
Buzzing with pennate Eleatic arrows.
Not a year, not a hundred years of journey would exhaust it.
Had I overturned the table what would we have accomplished.
That act, a non-act, always no more than potential
Like the attempt to penetrate water, wood, minerals.
But she, too, looked at me as if I were a ring of Saturn
And knew I was aware that no one attains.
Thus were affirmed humanness, tenderness.