tractatus 5

The two principles, those of Piety and Virtue, are seen to extend to algebra. Some insist that the primary foundation of algebra is Aristotelian, the identity that N=N. Independent of all other numbers, many take this truth for the beginning of the numerical science. What folly! Such asserts that if an egg have a crack, and if the egg can remain itself without a crack, that the crack can exist without the egg! The two principles I have delineated more satisfactorily resolve the foundation. The four basic relations of algebra comprise addition, multiplication, exponentiation, and logarithms. These relations comprise a minimum of two numbers, as an opened fruit yields at least two pieces, else the fruit is whole. For logarithms, I shall say that they tell the mathematician how long something may mature given a rate of growth. For exponentiation, I shall say that it makes growth observable. For multiplication, I shall say that it distributes itself among its parts. For addition, I shall say it is simplistic.

Fragment XIII

Kings replace friends as skin replaces scabs.

libretto iv

The Emperor:

No! The emperor deigns not
To bow before the crowd.
The works and days make men to sweat,
Men shan't make the day to leak;
The fever and the influences harm not
Nobles, gold-blooded, thoroughbred.
Without the emperor
They all would burn their meats
To cook the kindling.
Madmen, madmen, madmen!
Who will cure them of their curates?
Not I, no longer, no chance.

distich viii

I bought a fruit gone dark with rot and hung with mold,
A beard to rival that of cardinals, I'm told!

Observations on Correspondence (7)

I've held few correspondences in my life, unsurprising, expected, for I've held few households for great lengths of time, such as the summer I spent before moving to Portugal when my enthusiasm exceeded my stomach, by which I mean that I would forego lunch and breakfast, though only twice, in order to save for the long-distance postage, a distance which has since shrunken, or, rather, a price which has since shrunken, not unlike friend in Haiti whose admiration for the world of letters has diminished for reasons I shall not discuss, not here, not now, not me.

From "An Essay on the Ostracist" (2)

Fragments I and IV exhibit a common trope in poetry of any nation. As with much of Horace and with the first book of the Georgics, the Ostracist pays close attention to the time of year in which the given fragment takes place. Basho preferred oblique glances into the spring and more serious, for Basho, looks at the winter. The Ostracist designed to trap the listener, for it was an oral culture, into the situation. As the archaeologists have agreed, tonsure was seasonal, taking place well within the spring. With a touch of wit, the Ostracist wishes to draw parallels between the sanding of the orchards with the tonsure of the beard, for the former is deemed comical and the latter sanctimonious. Of course, this might simply imply tribal rivalry with another region that had no such ceremony.

libretto iii

Proserpina:

When I had left the birds were winging
Sweet airs, sweet airs,
They left me with a dirge
That I carried underneath.

When the primavernal empress
Leaves for cavernous hours,
The river hardens for his grief
That comes from deep within.

When Proserpina leaves the House of Bounty
And the clouds visit the villagers
They all seek out her tracks.

The dowry of Fall is full paid,
The king of Depth now pines in waiting;
The Duchy of Green is come again!