By Button Poetry
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Khary Jackson, performing at Button Poetry Live, April 2018.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:05
now rolls I gotta I gotta tell you
00:09
something Troy I’m busy finishing this
00:11
proof now you want to talk I told you I
00:13
was solving my equations from five to
00:16
seven you had all day and now you want
00:18
to talk yours rules I had all day but
00:20
now you say the proof is more important
00:21
than me damn it true are you saying the
00:23
proof is more important to me ain’t no
00:24
one said that I’m just working every
00:26
morning I wake up drag my tired bones to
00:29
my work desk pick up the white man’s
00:31
pencil and worked in the equation so my
00:34
fingers a blister and the pencil runs
00:35
down to a nub you often find me drunk on
00:39
Exponential’s and imaginary digits the
00:41
pencil in my mouth like a cigar rolled
00:44
in the original papers of the theory of
00:46
relativity I’ll be working rose and I
00:49
finally got the guts to tell you tell me
00:51
what Troy I don’t put my pencil down now
00:54
lock the calculations in my mind just as
00:57
sure as you unlock your whiskey when you
00:59
forget I was a mathematician before I
01:01
was ever your wife my pencil is down now
01:03
Sargon and tell me what we’ll all right
01:05
now rose now you know I didn’t spent the
01:07
last 18 years trying to fill the gaps in
01:10
the standard model of particle physics
01:12
we both know the standard model got
01:15
holes big enough to blast a baseball
01:17
through I’ve been trying to find a way
01:18
to tell you I gave up on that equation
01:21
woman I took a breath here is my daddy’s
01:23
pussy and that’s through that Swiss
01:25
cheese standard model down the rest I
01:27
laid it down like Jeff himself I know I
01:29
didn’t tell you you sure as hell didn’t
01:31
how we’ve been busy rose you think I
01:33
visit you think you’re the first one in
01:38
this house to accept the limitations of
01:40
the standard god-forsaken model Troy I
01:43
was only helping you so you wouldn’t
01:45
feel foolish I knew better ages ago it
01:47
ain’t easy for me to admit I’ve been
01:49
calculating with no measurable results
01:51
for 18 years I’ve been calculating with
01:53
you don’t you think I ever had dreams of
01:59
neutrinos laughing and my theoretical
02:01
futility don’t you ever think I wanted
02:04
to try something different like maybe
02:05
give me a job at NASA but I stayed with
02:08
you Troy I joined you at every
02:09
Convention and conference as if that
02:11
could ever be as gratifying as for
02:13
helping to put some white man on the
02:14
moon
02:14
all right Rose you’re right but I got a
02:18
new theorem to wrestle with it’s brand
02:22
new just innocent just a baby and I need
02:27
you to help me solve it I know it ain’t
02:29
Birds from you
02:30
but it’s here and beautiful and
02:34
painfully incomplete will you help me
02:37
rose yes Troy I will and I might just
02:42
mess around and make it even better but
02:45
I’m using my pencil my paper my desk my
02:49
mind my proofs do not eclipse you Troy
02:52
but they damn well mean a sweet melody
02:54
to me so if you do not mind at last I’m
02:58
working
03:00
[Applause]
03:03
[Music]
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video