Georg Cantor Chasing Infinity I Must
Become a
Premium Member
and post notes and photos about your poem like Ruta Skendeliene.
Georg Cantor is the greatest mathematician that ever walked the earth. He was the first to came up with the idea that infinity is a mathematical category and can be analyzed and understood using mathematical methods. The idea was so outrageous at the time that his contemporaries thought he was crazy and locked him up in a madhouse, where he died very lonely and depressed. After his death is has been proved he was RIGHT!!!!! This poem is a tribute to his brilliant mind that has never been appreciated and to the minds of all who are ahead of their time.
Georg Cantor. Chasing infinity. I must!
He was a very lonely man
Tortured by desire to understand
The world and the God’s mind
Like a fearless seasoned sailor
He embarked an elegant boat
Of extreme mental endeavor
With powerful white sails spread wide
And four winds flying behind
He sailed into the realm of unknown
Rejected and abandoned by the world
Breaking hostile waves utterly alone
His peers called him scientific charlatan
And his attempt sickness of mind
But he ignored them and moved forward
Trying to find terra incognita
That was keeping secrets of mathematics
Touching the limits of infinity
Balancing on the edge of insanity
He reached a point where
All the lines of reality converge
In the mind of God in one tight knot
Where everything starts and ends
In one minuscule steadfast spot
The sails halted entangled in wind
And collapsed in a wide swing
He stood there still for three days
Like crucified sun on the cross
Of torturous spring equinox
Till the moment of revelation came
He saw overwhelmingly beautiful pattern
Spread wide in front of his sight
Of cosmic motion in one elegant flight
Moving towards the horizon
And bending on the other side
He saw infinity standing still all night
Revealing to him her mystical beauty
Expressed in vision of cornucopia
Of even bigger infinities springing
From each other’s solar plexus
Spreading at the speed of light
In an eerie turbulent cosmic night
Lustfully intertwining in one knot
And passionately devouring each other
In heavenly cosmic orgy of motion
Expiring in violent fiery commotion
And then flying slowly away
In a sensuous dreamy way
Extending to the horizon
And disappearing at sun rising
The next morning he saw
The navel of cosmos giving birth
To forever expanding universe
Overwhelmed with exhaustion
In numb emptiness he collapsed
He woke up in the cell of mad house
Opening his burning eyes
In pitch darkness of eerie night
He saw himself laying in a cold
Metal bed with restricting shirt
Holding his arms tied
Firmly behind his spine
Covered with sticky blanket of sweat
Waking up he was trying to grasp
The meaning of his vivid dream
And to memorize how big infinity is
Which he saw reaching the dome
Of his head and spreading outside it
How big infinity is that it would fit
In his feverishly racing mind
He agonized about it every night
In the depth of darkness,
He heard a secret voice
Calling him to open the doors
To mathematics of infinity
And in a daze of inspiration
And non-ending hallucinations
In his dream he saw the numbers
Dancing in front of his eyes
Like seagulls flying up high
In the bright bottomless sky
And diving in to the ocean
Of eternal primal motion
With indescribable precision
He put names on each of them
He saw their faces smiling at him
Seductively winking in a lustful way
And then spreading out in disarray
He could count them and see
How elegant the pattern was
That weaves the fabric of cosmos
The numbers were dancing
in front of his eyes all night along
Till the morning opened the doors
They dissipated like vampires
Burnt to dust by the power of light
With sun breaking through the clouds
All he could see was ashes and dust
He couldn’t remember last night’s lust
He saw it he memorized the design
But in the bright sunlight
He couldn’t remember it
Or think of it or see it
It was gone in one instant
It was like a gulp of water
Disappearing in his mouth
That quenched his thirst
But could not be grasped
A moment ago it had
A shape of clear glass
That he held in his hands
And now it was nothing
But a part of his flesh
A lonely organ was playing Bach
In the distant landscape
Behind cold shattered window
With frost painted floral glass
He struggled to remember
And he screamed:
I must I must to grasp it
To catch it to understand it
To memorize it to etch it
That which was hidden
Will be brought to light
One day or one night
In bright sun or candlelight
I must to find the way
To etch it in my brain
I must!
A solitary violin was crying
In a distant murky landscape
Of remote rural Saxony
Telling a tragic story of a lonely man
Possessed by desire to understand
His titanic effort to catch infinity
With his bare strong hands
Of his brilliant powerful mind
Locked in a cramped square
Filled with transcendental fear
Clinging to infinity hopelessly
In his feverishly racing brain
Like an old man in the sea
Was holding a sublime fish
Bigger than his eyes could see
In desperate mortal attempt
To win the battle of his life
Or to perish in demise
Violin was crying for infinity
imprisoned in a tiny square
Of a madhouse dreary cell
In an extraordinary mind
Of a very lonely man
Till the day he died
Then the doors opened wide
Letting freed infinity fly away
In to the burning skies
Of the cold grim evening
Of sorrowful winter day
Lonely Violin quietly cried
For a man who tried
To tame infinity
Like a wild mustang
That was born to be wild
Copyright © Ruta Skendeliene | Year Posted 2016
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment