Screw it cried Pythagoras and The Worm

John Irvine

"Screw it!" cried Pythgoras to Archimedes over an oyzo and octopus lunch, and he did...   Pythagoras in his geometric wisdom would have clapped his hands at our rainy day today.   The hypotenuse of the aforesaid rain although we couldn't see it was somewhere way over the western hills out in the Hauraki Gulf whilst the right angled line crossed my window a continuous silver stream from top left to bottom right striking the base line mutiple blows forming a mercurial shape-shifting shimmering triangle.   Over my third pre-lunch wine I wondered if the world instead of being round or flat as various traditionalists would have it is in fact triangular with only the scale making a difference to perspective.

The worm     this taste was like no other taste and I'd eaten raw fish once tiny and transparent crunchy and salty alive   this was a fat and pink and slimy taste sluggishly writhing on my outstretched tongue  with the muskiness of damp soil and the feel of five pairs of eyes wet on my mind desperate for me fail   I couldn't chew it but I swallowed it whole teeth clenched against possible regurgitation holding out one chubby hand for the wagered marbles

 

John Irvine is an Old Aged Pensioner in New Zealand with delusions of immortal failure and a cynical view of life. He has a mole under his left arm, and a wife who hates pizza and tripe. He hopes to die painlessly one day without warning, and with a minimum of leakage.  He had a volume of poetry published in 2005 by Zenith Publishing Group: www.zenithpublishing.co.nz  of New Zealand called Man of Stone. It has been positively reviewed in NZ's Takahe magazine by Raewyn Alexander, in Valley Micropress by Tony Chad and given a thorough rubbishing by Sam Smith of The Journal in the UK. John's pathetically grateful for all of that. He also has a web site where you can waste some time: www.cooldragon.co.nz  He has also had a collection of  pathetic poetry illustraed cleverly (for an Australian) by Dave Freeman called Rat atouille for the rindless. We’re currently suing Disney…  He was at one time poetry editor of Canadian teen writer’s magazine What If? Running his own online writer’s group, participating in two others, administering to the What If? Online forum and teaching poetry to primary school kids in his home area keep the old gent busy.  He has been published in any number of print and online magazines, including Australian Reader, Wicked Karnival, Black Ink Horror, Illuminations, Sam Smith’s Select Six, Whispers of Wickedness, Scifaiku, Stylus, Kokako, the NZ Poetry Society's 2006 haiku anthology and NZ’s own Magazine. And now he may be read in that truly amazing, splendiferous, astounding, heroic Canadian online magazine Noneuclidean Café.

Photo "Ocean's Fury" by Bella Dante.

 

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Poems Copyright © 2008 John Irvine. All rights reserved.

Photo Copyright © 2008 Bella Dante. All rights reserved.