However it seems dictionarily,
in writing
five means 5.
And 5 means five.
See what I mean?
Pass along here.
Nothing more to see
except linguistic philosophy.
“Number words”–
those nouns-are
numbers
themselves, something more or
less than words.
They are the “veritable thing” itself, but
abstract. Items as signage, without shadow
without much connotation,
though some (like “three”)
have rich allusional resound,
but generally they’re indexical things,
just numbers making us mouth
sounds.
I think they should
be called nounds.

Four. Quatrain
s

make a ballad

Four. Veggie
s

make a salad

Four. Quart
s

make a gallon

Four. Quartet
s

are based on five.

The fourth dimension
‘s

time.
Fourth person pronoun
s

get to speak it-
s

posthumous futurial words.
Surds.

Zero and rr are linked in my mind.
Both are beyond “theoretical”
right straight into “odd.”

Plethora right straight into
cornucopias of unrepeating numbers
and the absolute empty, yet something.

Something that is
a total mystery of fullness
and of nothing-which is also something.

Meantime strabismus,
that quirky crick of sight,
connects to strophe, strobe and streamer.

Remember the crepe paper swirls,
fast, bright,
authoritative circles of color?

To make a circle or a “zero,”
you attached the crepe paper length
to an old key, and swung it round and round.

It was a key that no one knew from nothing,
a key you found in the junk drawer,
with rubber bands, blunted pencils,

wads of Green Stamps,
dusty tape–
the irrational keep,

and, key attached, you took the streamer,
you the center, circling a radiant diameter
with your radius-arm.

You can say this talks about nothing
all you want.
but “zero” is clearly and richly filled
with signs and signage.

Not to say meaning
and strangeness,
a whole semiotics–
signs of being which is nothing–

though how do we know?
Perhaps such concepts
have microscopic cellular
movements far beyond our senses?

Is zero the phase transition
between nothing as void,
as really blankly nought-
and number?

Are zero and number
like steam to water, water to ice
a single substance in many forms?
And what is that substance?

Or perhaps it is π that illustrates
phase transition even better
from a poly-polyphonic-hedron
to a “simple circle.”

So she says her book
Has no beginning and no ending

Unlike the architecture
Of many books.

She says, “because numbers
Are in order but can occur

Anywhere, anyhow, in any
Odd combination

Sometimes called physics,
Occasionally called time,

Sometimes calculation, chaotic
Order, though some are formulaic,

Therefore with no beginning
And no ending, one leaves a space

For recounting. Maybe rearranging.”
That’s what she says.

The tsunami of netting
holds numbers for a year, a particular one

that’s now past. Washed over. Old news.
Old news twice. Yet why so fervently deny

narrative? That was then. This is now.
Is there no order? No priority? No sense to be made?

No revelation at the end? The plot
is not to have one? Does this mean no quest?

Red trap with an orange streak.
2 “x” 1000 “+” 10 “=” deux mille dix.

Two zero one zero. Twenty-ten. Twenty-eleven.
Who knows how this ardor will play out?