by David Lehman
Very well-known in the world of philosophical
Mathematicians and mathematical philosophers
But unknown in most Chicago neighborhoods.
Something about Church captured Joe’s fancy.
Perhaps Church’s theorem on the undecidability
Of first-order logic (extending Gödel’s
Incompleteness proof of 1931) engaged Joe’s
Sense of himself as an intellectual outsider.
Church—like Jack Brickhouse celebrating
White Owl Wallops—was an appreciator
Of Gödel, but his appreciation was such that
Church’s connoisseurship and Gödel’s creation
Actually fused. This was Joe’s hope for himself.
He phoned for a pizza pie and took stock
Of his life. Whitehead, Nagel, Kuhn, Church—
His understanding was real even if only he
Knew it. Just like the tree falling in the forest.
Which still falls though no one hears.
His room—austere, ascetic—this was how
Wittgenstein lived. Little furniture but
The air abuzz with energy of intellect.
He would die here. He would die happy.
There was a knock on the door: the pizza.
He opened the door and it was one of those
So-called deer in the headlights moments,
But since that trope would not achieve
Currency for some years Joe thought of it
Differently. He thought he was fit to be tied.
Yes, he was fit to be tied. “Schmolke?”
He inquired, diffidently. And then with
Much greater force: “Karen Schmolke!
Delivering pizza?” He quoted Shakespeare:
“Confusion hath made his masterpiece.”
She was frightened. “You know my name?”
Then, laughter: “Are you psychic or what?
Here’s your pie, cheese and pepperoni.
And yeah, I’m doing deliveries, man.
Life takes dough just like pizza.”
The pizza changed hands and Joe stared
Blankly at the box as Karen Schmolke stated,
“Four ninety-five plus tip. Hey, are we old friends?
Wait a minute. I know you. I gave you
A book in the Pegasus coffeehouse.”
“Yes, absolutely,” Joe said and quoted Buddha:
“What you have given will always be yours.”
He reached in his pocket, found a five,
Then found another five and gave her both.
“I’m so grateful to you. Please come in.”
She entered, saw his table piled high
With books and papers, his telephone
For ordering pizza, and in a corner
His mattress. “Nice place,” she quipped,
But sarcasm was wasted on Joe Adamczyk.
Mole-like or like a digging aardvark
He was attacking a seemingly random
Hodgepodge of books that in his own mind
Was superbly organized, and from this
He soon retrieved Whitehead’s Dialogues.
“Look familiar?” he said, grinning triumphantly.
Karen Schmolke nodded: “You read it?”
The question insulted Joe: “Of course.”
But now her attention was drawn to a paper
On the card table. “Look! Alonzo Church!”
It was Church’s June 1940 review of
Are There Extra-Syllogistic Forms of Reasoning?
By S. W. Hartman from the Journal of Symbolic Logic,
Joe obtained it from the John Crear Science Library
Where zeal for learning won him borrowing privileges.
“I called him Uncle Alonzo,” Karen Schmolke said.
“When Uncle Alonzo taught at the U of C,
He and my dad would sit at the kitchen table
Working on the Entscheidungsproblem
And I drew pictures of them with mustaches.”
“You knew Alonzo Church?” Joe urgently
Demanded—and then, as if to answer himself,
He shouted, “You knew Alonzo Church!”
Recovering, he pointed out with reverence,
“Church was the teacher of Alan Turing.”
“Yes, he was,” said Karen Schmolke. “He also taught
Barkley Rosser, Raymond Smullyan, and don’t forget
Isaac Malitz. Dad took me to Uncle Alonzo’s lectures
But at ten or eleven years old I had no interest in the
Philosophical underpinnings of arithmetic.”
As she began a narrative of her undergraduate
Years at Oberlin College, Joe Adamczyk with an
Impatient wave, as if shooing away a horsefly,
Cut her off and with fierce interest demanded,
“What kind of lecturer was Alonzo Church?”
“Well, he had a very careful, deliberate style,”
Karen Schmolke reminisced. “He would start
Writing on the left side of the blackboard
In a large, clear, cursive hand . . .” She paused.
“Are you all right? Have some pizza.”
“Pizza?” said Joe distractedly, for the word
Meant nothing to him now. With the clarity
Of inner vision he saw Alonzo Church
At the blackboard, he saw Alonzo Church
Pacing around a lectern deep in thought.
And this girl Karen Schmolke! With her own
Ears she heard Alonzo Church lecture on the
Church–Turing Thesis, the Frege–Church
Ontology, the Church–Rosser theorem, and
Many similar matters. With her own ears!
For her part, Karen Schmolke just stared
In quiet puzzlement at this peculiar man
Whose name she had still not learned,
This odd duck who with his head cocked
Seemed to hear some far-off supernal music.
“Please try some pizza,” she offered again,
Now more insistently—for Joe’s face seemed
To be changing, his expression deepening.
What did he see? With his obvious interest
In logic, she surmised it was some esoteric proof.
But no, it was Grandma Fogarty! Oh God,
Grandma Fogarty had dropped by unexpectedly!
Joe Adamczyk felt the presence of Grandma Fogarty
And indeed he felt the presence of Grandma Fogarty
More strongly than ever in his life before!
Turning his gaze toward Karen Schmolke,
He wondered whether she might also sense
The arrival of Grandma Fogarty. Gently,
Hesitantly, he reached toward Karen Schmolke.
He caressed her cheek, then took her hand.
Wow, she thought. All men were the same.
On the other hand, never had Karen Schmolke
Felt such . . . desire? Or was it desperate need?
It was flattering, in a way. She smiled benignly.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Just don’t have a stroke.”
Her acquiescence, her mercy, Joe chose
To see as acceptance, as heartfelt assent
When hand in hand they drew nigh the mattress.
She wore no bra and this fact, to Joe Adamczyk,
Was a powerful expression of youth’s sans souci.
But was there not also a sans souci of age?
An insouciance, a devil-may-care perspective,
A what-the-hell attitude, a damn-the-torpedoes
Point of view? Yes, yes, yes, goddamnit!
And Joe embraced that carpe diem sensibility!
He gamahuched Karen Schmolke with startling
Enthusiasm. Cunt, slut and similar words
Eddied and swirled in his brain. Yet a logos,
A telos, was also disclosing itsel
f, cleverly
Interweaving his fucking with philosophy.
Through this most intimate touching
Of a woman who had seen Alonzo Church,
Joe felt himself connected not just to Church
But through Church to the realm of pure forms
Described by Pythagoras, Plato, and others.
Thought and feeling, cunt and consequentialism
Mingled until an aphorism of Whitehead’s emerged:
“There are no whole truths. All truths are half-truths,”
The great man explained. That is: truth is never final,
Truth is ever on the way, always halfway there.
Like Achilles’ fabled pursuit of the tortoise
Truth is a reality but a reality of process.
Truly Joe had been a bartender. Just as truly
He was one no longer. Who could aver that he
Would not one day be President of Mexico?
Rising to his knees, he poised his swollen member
To enter Karen Schmolke. She arched her back
And her breasts like spring lambs leaped to meet him
Until for at least a moment his ratiocinations quieted
And twice she nutted to one nut of Joe Adamczyk’s.
I hope you have enjoyed this story of a man who
Late in life undertook what Alfred North Whitehead
Called Adventures of Ideas and then, to his surprise,
Reignited his sexuality, which he called Grandma Fogarty.
And Eve Grabuskawa? Her story will be told, but not today.
from Harpur Palate
AARON SMITH
What It Feels Like to Be Aaron Smith
Though you would never admit it, you’re still shocked by pubic hair
in Diesel ads on Broadway and Houston, and you wonder what
conversations lead up to a guy posing with his pants unzipped to the
forest. Maybe the stylist does it, but somebody had to think, let’s show
pubic hair, and was that person nervous about saying, hey, I have a great
idea: pubic hair. You think about David Leddick’s book Naked Men
Too, and the model with the cigarette whose mother photographed
him with his jeans falling off and his pubic hair showing and how that’s
weird and you can’t even begin to process how someone would let his
own mother photograph him nearly naked and why a mother would
want to. Everyone pretends pubic hair in pictures is artistic, but we all
know it’s really about sex, which you quickly remind yourself is okay,
too, because you’re liberal, which you sometimes think means you
don’t believe in anything because you want people to like you. Then
you think how you hate the phrase shock of pubic hair in novels and
spend the next several minutes trying to think of a better phrase, shrub
of . . . patch of . . . spread of . . . taste of . . . wad of . . . then you think
how Joyce Carol Oates describes fat men’s chests as melting chicken fat
in her story _____________ and get paranoid because you used to be
fat and can never get your chest as tight as you want no matter how
much you bench-press. You make a mental note to send poems to
Ontario Review, Joyce Carol Oates is one of the editors and might like
your work. They published Judith Vollmer’s poem about the reporter
covering a murder scene, and you love her and her poems (maybe you
should send her an e-mail and see how she’s doing). Then you think
about pubic hair again, how embarrassing it can be at Dr. Engel’s when
he examines you and stares at it (do you have too much, how much
can you trim and still look natural), both of you trying to pretend it’s
professional when he asks you to move into the light, holds your penis
like a pencil, squeezes your balls, this guy’s fine, this guy’s fine, and you
don’t know how to be when he shakes your hand before you leave.
Then you feel perverted because you’re still thinking about pubic
hair, maybe everyone has pubic hair issues and nobody talks about it?
You know for a fact Laura does because she told you after she read a
Sharon Olds poem out loud and the two of you giggled. You think of
Tara, with thick eyeliner, who said well-groomed underarms are really
sexy and you adopted that phrase when you say you think underarms
are sexy, well-groomed underarms you say and friends agree, especially
Tom who also loves underarms and sex clubs. You pass a hot guy
(not as hot as the bag check guy at The Strand whose shirt comes up
when he puts your backpack on the top shelf) and you want to sleep
with him and stare, hoping he raises his arm so you can see his hair.
You wonder if you have a disorder and then get mad as a taxi screams
through your walk signal and think, I understand why people open fire
on playgrounds, then you feel bad because it’s not about children, even
though they get on your nerves and nobody in Brooklyn disciplines
their children, you pretend you didn’t think that and think: I understand
why people open fire in public places (like that’s better). Then you get
scared that maybe one day you’ll snap and kill people, but probably
not, then you’re really scared that everyone feels like this and we don’t
realize how great the potential for disaster is, like yesterday walking
between a car and bus on Fifth you trusted the bus driver to keep
his foot on the brake and didn’t worry he might pin you against the
car and you’d end up like Christopher Reeve, immediately you try to
decide if Christopher Reeve is a valid example of your fear or if you’re
just making fun of him, and you feel guilty, the way you feel guilty for
laughing when Jeff says his messy apartment looks like Afghanistan, but
you have to admit the metaphor of Superman becoming a quadriplegic
is pretty amazing, but you probably shouldn’t—no, you shouldn’t write
that.
from Court Green
STEPHANIE STRICKLAND
Introductions
1
I live in a splendid city
Capital of capital ruinful ruinous ruin us Noo Yawk
Plastered painted dripping with myopic
Gold at dawn
Rivers of tall glass gold even with my glasses on
Green carbon footprint an imperial minim
Sky spectrum at sunset ravishing toxin induced
Blue fumous purple
2
I am as alone as survival permits
Not at all and quite a bit
Only my afflicted daughter more so
Hidden in a land of flaunted wealth
Organ rebellion no site safe
Neural paroxysms gag on water
Choke on air
Bio-integrity fails to adapt
Extended care
3
Fay folk wee sprites inside
Lily of the valley cordon by the garage
On the way to the back alley
Beneath the raised screen porch
Stopping the jalopy with built-up pedals
To discover garnets grenadine black currant eyes in a twirl
Upon twirl of lace Queen Anne’s in a meadow o
Of course not a meadow
Some back lot some abandoned weed field
No one liked it then but she and me
The aimless caravanning
Elvishness still alive
from Barrow Street
ADRIENNE SU
On Writing
A love poem ris
ks becoming a ruin,
public, irretrievable, a form of tattooing,
while loss, being permanent,
can sustain a thousand documents.
Loss predominates in history,
smorgasbord of death, betrayal, heresy,
crime, contagion, deployment, divorce.
A writer could remain aboard
the ship of grief and thrive, never
approaching the shores of rapture.
What can be said about elation
that the elated, seeking consolation
from their joy, will go to books for?
It’s wiser and quicker to look for
a poem in the dentist’s chair
than in the luxury suite where
eternal love, declared, turns out
to be eternal. Who cares about
a stranger’s bliss? Thus the juncture
where I’m stalled, unaccustomed
to integrity, despite your presence,
our tranquility, and every confidence.
from New England Review
JAMES TATE
The Baby
I said, “I’m afraid to go into the woods at night. Please
don’t make me go into the woods.” “But somebody has stolen our
baby and has taken it into the woods. You must go,” she said.
“We don’t have a baby, Cynthia. How many times must I tell
you that,” I said. “We don’t? I felt certain that we had a
baby,” she said. “We will have one soon, I feel certain of
that,” I said. “Then it makes no sense for you to go into
the woods at night. Without a baby to search for, what would
you do?” she said. “I’m going to stay right here by the fire
where it’s cozy and safe,” I said. “I’m going to go put the
baby to bed,” she said. “Someday there will be a baby,” I said.
“Until then I’ll put him to bed,” she said. “Have it your way,”
I said. She went out of the room humming a little ditty. I
put a log on the fire and lay down on the couch. Cynthia came
running into the room screaming, “The baby is gone! Someone
has stolen our baby!” “I never liked that baby. I’m glad
it’s gone. And I’m not going into the woods. Don’t even think
of asking me,” I said. “A fine father you turned out to be.
My precious baby eaten by wolves,” she said.
from jubilat and Harper’s
EMMA TRELLES
Florida Poem
