Singularity: from the Teacher to the Student

(for Teacher/Astronomer Ron Dyvig, an astronomical homage)


The perfect student is a singularity
from which nothing escapes
thinking itself greater than everything
that surrounds it
an arrogant black hole
with no bottom to its need
gravity enough to turn every
bit of knowledge
into a string of atomwords fed to it
one by one
each atomword some bit of knowledge
from which the student returns nothing
nothing escapes
everything captured
no light
no heat
no love
no hate
the perfect student feeding
on everything that surrounds it
voracious appetite unbound

The perfect teacher sits
on the threshold
of the singularity
allowing everything
to pass to the perfect student
unphased by the gravity
of the situation upon which he teeters
grabbing at him in a constant need
himself not needy
of the atomwords of knowledge
perfectly willing to let them
pass through him
yet somehow grasping each
and then spitting it away
instantaneously
in rapid fire
unphased by the experience
and yet remaining strong enough
to be balanced and distant
from the perfect student
to keep himself out of the way
of the singularity
that grows without growing
that expands without expanding
the becomes without becoming
visible

until one day it becomes
one conscious part
of the mind of God
in a bang...the bang

So these are the perfects
balanced apart like the poles
of good and evil
but not good and not evil
student and teacher
spinning faster about each other
until one day

the student awakens
in a flash of light
let there be
the student says to himself
to split himself away

from his teacher
to become himself

away alone

in search of that
which will satisfy
his loneliness
an electron in search of an orbit

One day grasped by a singularity
to become a teacher himself
who has found the balance
of the perfection he has sought
for so long now knowing
that nothing is perfect
unless it has passed through him
to others

And so the progression of the perfects
weaves the cloth of stars upon the heavens
the coat passing from one to the other
in the sudden bang of a student mind creating
the discovery that his teacher has been God
may still be God
but not God and not teacher
imperfect
and now

equal

friends

from each to each
back and forth
no singularities
no blackness
only light expanding endlessly
faster and faster
upon an unsuspecting universe


Copyright (C) 2007 by Barry G. Wick

Smirk

daisies growing on the edge
of this lawn
herons setting down along the creek
a constant swirl of wind through ash
thunder from a summer storm

these are facts with no shame
then why create it
from old pages
retraced in many tongues
till all the fact is rung from them

this count is too many fingers
that wave through years
the curl at the sides of a mouth
seen often when a chick
no longer fits inside an empty shell

from this side
the stretch of the lips
betrays denial as if
there could be no one
with what is deeply so different

At each occurrence I feel the sting
to stare into some void
to recover enough to complete
the story that started
to be accepted as what I know

(mp3 file of Barry G Wick reading this poem)


Copyright (c) 2010 by Barry G. Wick

Jokes

It is the jokes I play on myself
that are the funniest
jokes others cannot get
because they are heard only
in my head by and for an
audience
of one
joke about me involved
this or that
imaginations of the most absurd
anything to escape
the slavery and depression
in which I find myself

Copyright (c) 2010 by Barry G. Wick

A fool

On the edge of a river
there are two people
who sit on one spot
each claims
their hegemony
over the definition of the dark
that now pushes into the room
filled with the sound
of a piano
and a fan

Cooly one begins to act silently
while the other punches out notes
as if they were steel disks
created on a multi-ton press

Each pretends the other will
give up
both are wrong
when the real king
dances into the room
with cap and bells
wine spouts
from his forehead

Ay matey he screams
like some by-gone pirate whale
everyone bursts into laughter
from the place
where one finally decides
that what is done
is worthless

And so
they all go to bed
to pull the covers
up to his chin

(mp3 file of Barry G. Wick reading this poem)

Copyright (c) 2010 by Barry G. Wick

Inhuman

(for B.L.)


The sun is bright
though the windows
of the bus
thinking of him on the edge
of his life breathing his last
between the curb and his room
a blur
as are all such minutes
when thoughts are elsewhere
used for useless imagination
or prayers that never go beyond
the deepest thoughts
a blur upon arrival
and there has been a change
as people unknown crowd
around this friend
who had a mask upon his face
the day before
and now no mask to hide
his faceless gray expression
to force breath into his lungs
pumping the mix of science
and hope into a body that fails
yesterday on his side
now on his back
his naked body flat
his mother says twenty minutes
have passed since
and where was I
and where was I
squinting through the glass
of a cross town bus
lost between work bills and family
when this violence ended
and the unmentionable lifestyle
and the unmentionable disease
became an unmentionable body
in an unmentionable hospital
on an unmentionable day
and I only mention this
to remind you
to bring it into your mind
that across the hall
from his room
another man screams
for the family who cannot
bring themselves
to visit what
they have put out of their minds
their perfect suburban godly minds

(mp3 file of Barry G. Wick reading this poem)

Copyright © 2010 by Barry G. Wick