For Tuesday Poetics at the Pub for Poets today, Mish says write about numbers; numbers in general, a favorite number, a number that has meaning for you… the possibilities are numerous. I hope my poems count because, full disclosure, they are not fresh. These poems were written way back when I was a poetry writing math teacher. The first was for the kids. The second I wrote about this time in 2016. Go over to d’Verse Pub for Poets to find out more about Mish’s prompt. While there read the other poets’ responses and link your own poem.
Zero! by D. Avery
Zip, zero, zilch, nada
If you don’t value zero, well you oughta
As a stand-alone number, some say zero doesn’t count
but zero has a place of high standing, no doubt
Invaluable zero, symbol of nothing
we need you zero you really are something
Zero’s the gate keeper, resolute
between negative and positive, absolute
Zero’s a portal, a fulcrum, the start of infinity
a number with highly important properties
Zero the Hero, every digit’s most well rounded friend
a valuable number without whom there’d be no powers of ten
Without zero, we’d stop counting at nine
without a zero, taking a place in the line
Add or subtract it, there is no cost
multiply it by anything and all will be lost
Zip, zero, zilch, nada
If you don’t value zero, well you oughta.
Discounting Electorate Math by D. Avery
I am
one three millionth
As a number
very small.
I am one
of three million.
You are too?
That’s two.
And also she?
That’s three.
Actually
there’s three million
Ones
like us
Three million who
were discounted.
Three million three millionths.
That’s one
big number
whose common denomination
is that we
did not count
in this our own
great nation.
Three million three millionths
rise as one
Indivisible
for any number
divided by one
is that number.
It would not be improper
for all us ones
to rise,
to converge, raise
our voices surge
in our own
enumeration.
And it would not be improbable
to estimate
the discounted
to be innumerable
within this our own great nation.
Rise as one
make whole
the fractures
Heal the divisions.
Cancel out hate
in this our own
one world.
ShiftnShake 