poem: The Most Dangerous Thing I Do

tongue-in-cheek selected for publication in 2014 "The Larcenist"

Applied mathematics saves my life each day.

    It's like this: to get anywhere,

I must cross streets, on foot.

  A molecule fighting fluid dynamics

cross-functions of near misses

 and the kinetics of stop-start-weave

    freeze, then run... hypotenuse traverse

  and the optimization of critical mass.

Each calle is a careful calculation

  of mass x acceleration, skew lines

   drawn in air, avoidance of corner solutions

for the unpredictability of right-hand turns

   and the absolute marvel of how many

     moving wheeled things can fit into

exactly two times infinity nested functions

          of traffic lanes.

I determine braking time and likelihood,

   run to tree lines and balance on 4 inch

     blocks of concrete poised like fractals

  inside the terminal velocity of shadow prices:

        the cost of pedestrian anxiety

       where diesel will always trump at the

   x-intercept of human rights.

The distributive property never quite

  caught on here. I shake my fist and am glad

      that a word as versatile as the F-bomb

    circumscribes my world: among flying insults.

 exponentially accelarated rooftop acrobatics,

  cat-calls, and a maniac apocalyptically

      brandishing a tire iron, imaginary numbers

    add up into gruesome possibilities.

Dependent events converge, parallel lines cross,

    and I make it one more step towards

       my theoretical limit, before I have to start

  over again. And love is by far the most dangerous

     thing I do, but I lie to my mother. I

          tell her that is the associative property

       of addition: the sum total any given day

     of how many times I simply try to cross

            streets in Central America.

     

  

Author's Note

maybe you have to have experienced the traffic on Latin American streets to understand this poem.

no advanced maths skills needed... this is mostly just a play on words

Reviews

[Rene Salinas]

Marie it is in your vivid descritpions that your words resound powerfully as well. I like the Math reference but as you pointed out I don't think any equation will help you at rush hour. But the way you weave your emotions with what you see is really interesting. It is intriguing becuase it is raw which seems to be something in your characther, it is spontaneous and that also makes it honest. No rehearsing here or pre meditated second agendas. Very intriguing.

Thankyou

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Rene, for this review and your astute observations. Much of my writing is very spontaneous and in-the-minute. There is little room for premeditation, you are corrrect. My agenda is to pull you as the reader into a different perspective or world than you might have previously thought. No more, no less.

[emmajoy]

' .. .. avoidance of corner solutions ~ for the unpredictability of right-hand turns and the absolute marvel of how many moving wheeled things can fit into ~ exactly two times infinity nested functions of traffic lanes. ' Seems Latin American traffic behaviour is farcical!

As someone who can only count to ten, I found this amazingly academic but, saved my own day by smiling at various cues! Your writing always exceeds limits.. always has, always will. Seems that traffic messes with minds as well as nervous systems.. will stay in the sticks where there are only tractors and combine harvesters. Brilliantly everything, my dear friend.. as ever.

[Marie Anzalone]

Emma, I find myself living in a state of more os less constant anxiety, a poster child for why Xanax was invented but too poor to afford it, so I work myself into stupor by the careful application of terror to my nervous system at carefully calculated intervals and let the post-adrenaline crash do the work. :-) In all seriousness, I think you can tell a lot about aculture by how they treat animals and their mentally ill and how they drive. Here they are kind to the mentally ill, indifferent to animals, and absolute tyrants while driving. Power struggle, anyone?

AS always, dear friend, your review and words are breaths of fresh air in my day. Thank you for gracing my page with your beautiful presence.

[emmajoy]

Having read your response, am feeling guilty now - should have been far, far more empathic, R., and apologise for not behaving as a friend should. So wish you could step just a shadow back from all the worries in our world, love.. you know how easy it is to want to fight battles - sociological, scientific et al.. Have 'known you for so many years, if you need to mail, you know you can. Sending hugs.

[Marie Anzalone]

emma, no worries, my friend.. my entire response was very tongue in cheek this time, not meant to be taken seriosuly at all. so much is lost in inflection of text. blessings on your day, my friend. I have initiated a spiritual divorce and am grieving but otherwise well. living in Central America does provoke constant anxiety, and we find that survival humor takes us to resilient spaces that mere pathos could not.

[emmajoy]

Best i can do is just to be here for you even though so many miles away.

(Yes, I'm beginning to understand that survival humour needs blossom these days!) Must away to whatever needs turning down or up, around or whatever. :)

[TL Boehm]

Delicious. Simply delicious - and I am gluttonous for beautiful deep words today. I found them here. If I had to get across this street - I'd be a speed bump. As in math so in life.

[Marie Anzalone]

There are days, TL, when I wonder how it is that I am not yet just a speed bump as well. But htne we get up and keep going, don't we, even when we have no earthly cluse just WTH it is we are suppposed to do. And that's part of it, too, I think. You do not need to study love to feel it, but knowing the words can help you understand and define the feeling. And so it is with everythign else.

[Tree]

Smartly written poem that forces the reader to not only find numbers and theory between the lines, but to imagine how this math weaves and intersects deep, into everything we do. Reading this I began to imagine the readers seeing the poet's precarious commute –––– not just in vivid imagery, but in numbers; feet vs inches, azimuths and geometrical lines, tonnage vs pounds and m & velocity = deadly force, almost envisioning what the poet sees with mathematical subtitles... A fascinating read, and the ending was poignant and deviates from the main body nicely, as if the poet steered us purposely away from her soon to be ending yet and the same time, incorporating these mathematical metaphors and visuals precisely, so that we, in our minds and hearts, might accurately compute, that subtle, mind expanding /ending.



Very cool piece, poetess.

[Marie Anzalone]

thanks, Diego, this one was a fun write. Its inspiration came exactly as you might think: I was standing on a 4" wide concrete traffic divider with large trucks whizzing by inches from my front and back, simply doing what I do every day and trying to get from point A to point B on foot. Exactly as you oint out, the physics of it all started occurring to me. Pondered and later embellished, it ended up here. :-)

[Tree]

Your piece caused me to see exactly that in my minds eye. Engineers don't have a lot of space to work with out there, and pay little attention, to those who navigate on foot..

Be safe, Marie.

Diego Paz

[lost girl]

I think there are many places in the world where there is life traffic just as you explained. It is often so confusing and the clock hands are a roulette. Even in simplicity there is chaos. Excellent read.

[Marie Anzalone]

Ah but my dear friend, I am not writing metaphorically. I am describing real traffic situations :) Thanks for the time and the review!

[W.k.kortas]

...and it is a wonderfully constructed, tongue-in-cheek piece, the interplay of mathematical terminology and the laws of mathematics bumping up against motorists who are not particularly interested in law or mathematics. Winsome and witty stuff.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, kortas, for seeing the humor and intent of this piece. You nailed it exactly in your description.

[bob, small b. aka invs]

sounds like what it's like to be a pedestrian in downtown chicago at rush hour. i never was any good at math.

[Marie Anzalone]

I imagine that some US streets approximate this state of affairs. Still, many places in the US design spaces for pedestrians. There is no such thinking here. Despite being bad at math, I am glad that you survived street crossings in Chicago :-)

[charlie]

Maybe you're right. Or maybe a starter course in applied math might prove equally favourable. I like the technical slant in this: now I only have to learn what it means :)

[Marie Anzalone]

thank for the review, charlie. This is far less about math and far more about simply being a play on words. :-)

[charlie]

yep. being clued in vernacular often helps, too. Nice work, Marie