The Ignominy Of Geometry Poem by Robin S Ngangom

The ignominy of geometry,
the inability to evade angles and parallels.
Living, we have to suffer that mortification
which robs the sacrifice of joy
much of its sheen.

One minute of patronizing certainty
and the boring man is a ‘square’
but when our understanding’s poor
someone’s off on a tangent,
and that dark excitement we all secretly envy
is an eternal triangle,
or, when two people cannot agree (naturally)
they are diametrically opposed,
bowing again to geometry,
a language of precision
to measure our imprecise lives.

We were given a white emptiness
and left to our devices. Wanting more from life than
mere life
we tried to fill that emptiness with lush pigments,
beauty, purpose, a finishing touch of children.
We went looking for subjects in time and space
creating moments under cherry-trees, lifting glasses
to youth,
but merely fulfilled the oracle of repetition
and then we speak of a wheel coming full circle.
The ignominy of geometry,
the inability to see beyond centres and triangles.

Even my love was flesh and blood
because I had put my mouth on her lips
but good fortune abandoned us
and we became two tiny points of light
on that white emptiness
drawing unhappy parallel lines.