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Gedicht

Dorothy Porter

NUMBERS

NUMBERS

NUMBERS

I get magic
     (sometimes I get more
        than I bargain for)

but I don’t get
     numbers.

Numbers do worse
than humiliate
     or elude me

they don’t add up.

I am no algebra tart
     ravished
by the meretricious music
      of the spheres.






My eyes and nose
never streamed
  with incontinent ecstasy
    through geometry classes
as my disastrous triangles
    collapsed in a cacophony
        around me.

Perhaps it’s a failing
          to grasp
             or even want
the utterly perfect number
        burning through my retina
like the utterly perfect  morning.

Instead I peer
        with nauseating vertigo
into the deep dark pitch
        of numbers
like an exhausted mammoth
        dangerously tottering
            on the edge
               of a bottomless mystery.
Dorothy Porter

Dorothy Porter

(Australië, 1954 - 2008)

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NUMBERS

I get magic
     (sometimes I get more
        than I bargain for)

but I don’t get
     numbers.

Numbers do worse
than humiliate
     or elude me

they don’t add up.

I am no algebra tart
     ravished
by the meretricious music
      of the spheres.






My eyes and nose
never streamed
  with incontinent ecstasy
    through geometry classes
as my disastrous triangles
    collapsed in a cacophony
        around me.

Perhaps it’s a failing
          to grasp
             or even want
the utterly perfect number
        burning through my retina
like the utterly perfect  morning.

Instead I peer
        with nauseating vertigo
into the deep dark pitch
        of numbers
like an exhausted mammoth
        dangerously tottering
            on the edge
               of a bottomless mystery.

NUMBERS

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère