Poem of the day. Michael Hamburger
Mathematics of Love
The links are chance, the chain is fate,
Constricting as Hephaistos’ net
Which to the smiles of gods betrayed
Two bodies on a single bed,
So tightly knit, the truth was plain:
One multiplied by one is one.
Subtracting lovers who retort
That what chance coupled, choice can part
(As if mere effort could relax
The clutches of a paradox)
At last to their amazement find
Themselves the dwindled dividend,
Deep in that hell where Don Juan
Knows he has added names in vain
Since all the aggregate is is lost
To him, not widowed but a ghost,
While those bereaved of one possess
A minus greater than his plus.
True love begins with algebra
Those casual actors x and y,
Nonentities whose magic role
Is to turn nothing into all.
To be and not to be, to mate:
The links are chance, the chain is fate.
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www.promosaik.com/projekte_promosaik/progetto%20poesia_FR.pdf
www.promosaik.com/projekte_promosaik/progetto%20poesia_GR.pdf
www.promosaik.com/projekte_promosaik/progetto_poesia_RU.pdf
www.promosaik.com/projekte_promosaik/progetto%20poesia_GR.pdf
www.promosaik.com/projekte_promosaik/progetto_poesia_RU.pdf
www.promosaik.com/projekte_promosaik/progetto_poesia_TR.pdf
If you are a poet, and would like to introduce your work to be interviewed by us check our interview page on the ProMosaik website here.
If you would like to publish your poetry book with us, see here.
