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FURTHER READING
Poems by A. Van Jordan
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)
From
Old Boy
R&B
The Flash Reverses Time
Related Prose
Poetic Form: Prose Poem
Other Prose Poems
A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg
About Foam
by Caroline Bergvall
Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
Exoskeletal Gesture
by Eric Baus
Gnosis
by Theodore Worozbyt
Just Listen
by Peter Johnson
Marble Hill
by Kazim Ali
RPT MC-60 00.27 8
by Tan Lin
Seurat
by Ira Sadoff
The List of Famous Hats
by James Tate
The Prose Poem
by Campbell McGrath
The Secret of Light
by James Wright
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Einstein Defining Special Relativity

 
by A. Van Jordan

INSERT SHOT: Einstein’s notebook 1905—DAY 1: a theory that is based on two postulates (a) that the speed of light in all inertial frames is constant, independent of the source or observer. As in, the speed of light emitted from the truth is the same as that of a lie coming from the lamp of a face aglow with trust, and (b) the laws of physics are not changed in all inertial systems, which leads to the equivalence of mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time; with increased velocity, space is compressed in the direction of the motion and time slows down. As when I look at Mileva, it’s as if I’ve been in a space ship traveling as close to the speed of light as possible, and when I return, years later, I’m younger than when I began the journey, but she’s grown older, less patient. Even a small amount of mass can be converted into enormous amounts of energy: I’ll whisper her name in her ear, and the blood flows like a mallet running across vibes. But another woman shoots me a flirting glance, and what was inseparable is now cleaved in two.






"Einstein Defining Special Relativity", from Quantum Lyrics by A. Van Jordan. Copyright © 2007 by A. Van Jordan. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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