The Riddle of Flat Circles [excerpt]
The Romans got their circling powers From a corps of Hellenic mathematicians. Rome--the container-skull, the fountainhead-- Lookout holes calling itself Reason. Against her Spain--Maya uprisings--against that grip-- People with terra cotta plus bluegrass flesh-- Flights, transhumance y more or less dispoblado. Two conch-shaped continents boisterously Romesqued. The merry die young. The sad, guarded And anxious live long lives. The really grim Are immortal. Continue the anti-anti-census. Capitulate to no Romes. Heliodemography is the study of the population Of the sun. Mrs. Smith lives there with the Mister. Through an art-of-the-state telescope Iris observes Cantilevered Yiddish’s stern stars.
Credit
Poem from The Printer's Error, reprinted with permission of Miami University Press
Date Published
01/01/2001