Axiom: A Mathmatics of Poetry

Photograph by Mark Sumberland


AXIOM: A MATHEMATICS OF POETRY


by Richard Smyth


It shall be taken as given the idea of infinition.
The idea of infinition stands in direct opposition
to the idea of definition.


Definition

Infinition is the act of making indefinite or unclear.
That is to say, while some uses of language attempt
to clarify, others attempt to obfuscate.


Construction

Make a poem.


Content

Call the poem the only poem.
Call the space of the page a universe to be born.
Call the shape the poem takes on the page
a creation.


Axiom 1: The Law of Conception

For any author, conception shall be the planting
of a seed in the fertile soil of the divine.

Equally, if the author is truly inspired,
conception is a sowing of the divine
within the author.

That is to say, sex is a metaphor
of linguistic conceptualization.

Thus, the value of a conception is the warmth
with which it was conceived.


Axiom 2: The Law of Creation

Every birth requires pain.
Every birth requires passage
and transition,
a crossing over
as of bridges, distances, rivers,
or the dark rite of the soul,
after carving masks and dancing
in rubber rooms


or the translations of light
into flesh, bone, blood.



First Canon: Convention of Representation

Let the word stand for another word.
Call this language.


First Infinition

The word shall unfold as if a soft cloth.
Language shall unravel like an old blanket.


Second Canon: Convention of Definition

Let a word be broken into other words.
Call these other words phrases and clauses.

In short, clarity is the result
of fracture and analysis.


Third Canon: Convention of Equation

Let any juxtaposition of two words be
an invitation to compare.
Let the comparison be designated
by a copulative.
Let the copulative be represented by a sign

is
of equation.

Call this the convention of equation.
In general, what is compared is the same.


Fourth Canon: Principle of Occultation

Let there be multiple meanings for each word.
Call these meanings the ambiguities.


Second Infinition of the Darknesses

The darknesses bring light.
They carry it upon their backs
as if a heavy burden.
They are bent and stooped like slaves.
They are the translators.


Fifth Canon: Convention of Generics

Let the ambiguities take up residence
in a house of words.
Call the house a form.
If the boundary between outside and inside
is clearly distinguishable call the form
a closed form.

If the boundary between outside and inside
is indistinguishable call the form an open form.
There is only one open form.


Third Infinition of the Open Door

Every open door is an invitation to enter.
Come, come, please come in,
take all you can,
you are already accused of stealing.
You are already a lost prophet.


Sixth Canon: Hypothesis of the Divinend

In the beginning was the myth
and the myth was necessary
and the myth was archetypal.

Let there be a poet who will make the myth.
Let there be a shaman who will channel the myth.
Let there be a priest who will materialize the myth.
Let there be an anthropologist who will analyze the myth.
Let there be a poet who will live the myth.

Call it all good.


Seventh Canon: Principle of Revelation

This is the coming down off the mountain.

This is the stone tablet and the word of god.

This is the stained glass window the light
shining in prismatic fracture this
is the vatic passion the banshee psalm
the single most important moment
in your life.


Richard Smyth

Posted over on Anabiosis Press