Sunday 15 February 2015

En route London Waterloo



















In this bus full of laughter
Pray tell, how do you concentrate?

Youngman, your book bears three names.
Its identity is a wafting smoke seeking

To commune with the clouds
And send rains as testaments
of shifting truths.

Post-structuralist:
Your truth is red today
and green tomorrow.

As Harmattan winds weep not
And leaves turn brown;
Your truth becomes brown and like
a chameleon—blend well on all pages and stages.

Youngman, the first page of your book is history.
Forget your life on the last page and close it.
Your life will be a bookshelf.

I was told that math could be
read like a novel:
x plus x minus x divided by x
So what? I burned my books.
I still carry my doubts around
like my schoolbag.
I love math but hate equations and algebra.
Both boring problems should solve themselves like I do.

Youngman, how does it feel to feast your
eyes on pages and meet people of all sorts?
Some make you cry.
Some make you smile.
Some make you think; you change.
In this bus, you’ve been turning pages
And laughing at yourself—or at the
characters you meet.
Whichever way, madness comes in different shapes.

Youngman, lend no one that book.
Carry it with caution and care.
Your madness is supreme.


© Echezonachukwu Nduka 2015.

(Image source: www.math.jhu.edu)

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