Every few decades I remember a time in my teens when I thought I could and would write poetry. As it turns out, I couldn't quite and most definitely wouldn't.

Of the poetry I wrote, the following is the only one I wrote (and submitted... to actual poetry editors!) which I can remember in full. I make no claims as to its literary qualities but it does serve to remind me that the intellectual and spiritual/anti-spiritual themes to which I frequently turn my thoughts today were fairly well-established in my mind over half a century ago.

People! I give you:

Transfinite Poem

by A Sorry Bowl

Because we must prepare some sort of clearing

Where the new numbers may safely disembark

We work all night, sometimes nervously peering

Up, into the indivisible Dark.

The numbers, we are told, will not resemble

Ideas of sets of oranges or curves.

We must not stand too close when they assemble;

The merest whiff of us might bruise their nerves.

We cannot guess what systems of equations

Apply to them; we must not think we know.

We will be awed. We will have reservations.

But they, we hope, oblivious, will grow...

Grow more complex, more beautiful, each second.

But — given what they are — this can't be reckoned.

(reprint of a blog post which originally appeared here)