Numberpoem

This poem was commissioned for performance at the Crouch End Festival's Mathamusical night at the Earl Haig, and inspired by the arrival of my grandsons, Vidar and Atlas xxx

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Oh one one one one oh oh oh oh one one
two boy islands in the ocean of the binary

Two new lives begun

Eggs divide cells proliferate elaborate

People couple travel settle separate die
We multiply the continents we live upon,

These 2 open up 4 tiny lungs and cry

And dad had he lived would now be 98
Me 57, 31 my son makes.., does it? 186

One simple father sum
Made up of many complex bits

The number of times we've eaten peaches

divided by
The grains of sand between the toes on various beaches
cigarettes smoked and hours wasted

how many kisses, coffees, cornflakes, chocolates tasted

Subtract the days we’ve felt a waste of space and time

Subtract the Disappointments times deceipts

times

distances in a) inches  b) silences, c)drives, d)feat

Subtract the day I'll die the
Multiple family divisions

The visions and revisions
The numbers of votes cast, tears shed,
The 26 letters of all the words we've said

Times arrows
Times squared
Times Lost

Times Found

Times Spent

Time Shared

Add

10 to ten to tenty ten

9 dreams

8 a horse

7 deadly sins

6 of best

5 french hens

4 mop tops (yeah yeah yeah) and

3 degrees

2 too too too too times

One love one day one one one one one 0 0 0 0 

None rhymes

Divided by a number on a shirt, a ticket stub, on human skin

A number walking into a bar and something funny happening

Like a squaw on a hippopotamus,
The square of you and me and them and us

Today You plus me minus those two equals sorrow
Let xxx equal the sum of all delights wherever we all are tomorrow

Our flight back home may be delayed -  
A dust of countless nearlyness begins to blow
Oh 1101101111000000001 One 0h