Dear boy, you may brush your trousers until they gleam, but you can't change the fact that '(x/x/3) = 3' is a provable, non-axiomatic statement in arithmetic, and so is a theorem of arithmetic. Just because something isn't an interesting X doesn't mean it isn't an X. Also, why are you suddenly waffling on about Goedel? If you're talking about the incompleteness theorem, you're buncombing up the wrong pair of stilts. That says there are some true statements that aren't theorems because they aren't provable. But '(x/x/3) = 3' is provable.

I know what you mean. My "exact feelings" usually only muster up when I'm attempting free verse (I'm not so great at it yet). I'm more of a form writer at heart so whenever I mosey into free verse I tend to say both too much and too little (and it turns out journal-entry-ish). Thanks for the comment and rating! •°•Gregory James •°•

i'm saying that a facile statement like "a thing divided by a third of itself equals three" (x/x/3)=3) isn't a (mathematical) theorem AT ALL, but a mere logical/notational (if not grammatical) truism. mathematics is interesting because it can make conclusions about things that aren't immediately obvious. statements that are tautologic like 1=1 are, strictly speaking, mathematically uninteresting, and it does a disservice to serious thought to call such things math. if you want to take the euclidean view, and say that ALL math is a priori and analytic (ie based fundamentally on logical axioms), then you should go back and live with Newton in the 17th century. Non-euclidean spaces, Einstein and a fellow named Kurt Godel have proven false the notion that logic and math are identical. ok I'll stop ranting now, b/c it's way past the point of being helpful to the poem :)

What did this look like before?

that's like saying poetry is art; art is poetry - an altogether facile/reductionist statement. we're supposed to be precise with language here - calling math and logic the same thing is too flip for my taste. ps both words are greek in origin (logos - 'word' or 'study'; math - from word meaning 'understanding'); why bother with two words if they mean the same thing?

Following your explanation I am left wondering exactly why a belch is the wrong word to use as the verb but correct to use as a simile of said verb. Is it the door that makes all the difference? If not how about a modification of the simile. 'waft like a Lady's eructation' perhaps?

and weak in literary circles is an gentleman's word for brown.

Can’t you see that it is not my intention in this series of math poems to hold rigorous mathematical standards? I want the poems to be correct mathematically, but not rigorous. The protagonist in No. 3 is not satisfying the demands that someone like Pythagoras faced in proving his well-known theory, nor should he. I’m trying to relate math to life, not math to philosophy or logic. And just in case you’re about to say that without logic, there is no math, let me add that much of the universe is running on chance to the chagrin of Einstein and others, and maybe the mind that made it that way likes the emotional tug of trying to outwit probability – “seven come eleven” and all that. No. 4 in the mill.

Because it’s not the same. “Waft” is a weak verb, and I used it because the smell was weaker than a belch. I know it’s complicated, but try. I’m flattered that the two of you feel a need to gang up on this important issue.

but it is 'barely' a simile. Waft is such a weak verb anyway, why not just use 'belch out of the door'.

Or like when they sampled "Batman" -- his actual voice.