The Imaginary i

Robert Ronnow
The Imaginary i

The Imaginary i

No mission, no omission, no zero, no fear,
no hesitation is great, no cows to look at, no image ever seen,
no eye sees his nose right, no zen, no zazen,
no longer playing with the eyes of other passengers,
no use for samurai skills, no smoking, no species before us
had to adapt to its own effects upon environment—no,
every species must, no confusion, no delusion
that mankind (or nature) gives a shit
whether you amount to something or not,
no answer is forthcoming for the young fool importunes to ask too frequently,
no robes, no perfectly manicured wardrobe,
no boat being repaired in the boatyard

Owing no member of society an explanation,
the warm steam no longer cutting the rough edge,
age, race, marital status no object,
no trucks to grind their gears,
no shame, no hymns, no hymnal,
no wallet, no keys, no owl hoots,
no soul, no solution, no Last Judgement,
no limbo either, no sale today, kneel woefully and pray,
no cars behind or ahead, no one notices or cares,
no thanksgiving, no gravediggers waiting,
no context for a man outside the platoon, no chickadees,
no Emily or Beauty, no real control

No greater tragedy, no better than a squirrel,
no memorable theories, no knife or gun, no pity,
no way to express the subtle degrees of experience our long lives represent,
no one thinks, no actor dies, no negotiation unless the violence ends,
no revelation, no downside, no confidence,
no, it did not fundamentally matter whether George was born,
no stopping the fight before the fight is done,
no more certain than a drunk in his city,
no sneakers, no money, no police record,
no job, no niche, no purple or indigo occurrences,
no desire to go outside and touch swelling buds, no romance left in love,
no bomb, no harm, no nation, no veto

No life in space, no hurry, no percentage in respecting death
unless it’s imminent, no choice, no angel, no particular agony,
no more birding, no more fucking, no more worry, no more war,
no perfect rest, no shouting, no crying,
no obligation, no doubt, no saxophone,
no friends or family, no religion in meditation, no kisses sweet
or smell of shit, no pleasure, no applause, no noise,
no fiction, no evidence, no Iliad, no Odyssey,
no one's blameless, no burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
no such luck, no petals, no sepals,
no footprint, no ghost, no explanation, no change,
no one of course is completely unknown, no interest in further sex

No snow, no scum, no chemistry,
no beginning and no end, no law, no resolution,
no plan for tomorrow, no one comes to dinner,
no strip joints, no more movies, no mosquitoes, no government,
no hundred year storms, no afterlife, no name, no tv!
no joy, no answer to the question why be a toy?
no serendipity, no matter what, no visible reaction from Tsarnaev,
no need to interpret the Chinese master’s wisdom, no cedar waxwings,
no Elizabethan inn, no such thing, no guards at the border, no one hoards gold,
no cell phone, no taxation without representation, no is always an option,
no clue what Krshna taught Arjuna, no need to pull down statues of General Lee,
no there there, no lawnmowers, no leafblowers, no long walk, no brush with death

“Why do we have imaginary numbers anyway? The imaginary unit i allows us to find solutions to many equations that do not have real number solutions. It is actually very common for equations to be unsolvable in one number system but solvable in another, more general number system:
—with only the counting numbers, we can’t solve x+8=1; we need the integers for this!
—with only the integers, we can’t solve 3x-1=0; we need the rational numbers for this!
—with only the rational numbers, we can’t solve x2=2; enter the irrational numbers and the real number system!
—and so, with only the real numbers, we can’t solve x2= -1; we need the imaginary numbers for this!”