An Infinitely Meaningless Poem by Ethan Goffman

As the old song goes, “nothing is real”

but how can nothing be real when it’s the absence of something?

Set theory says
there is an infinity of infinities
but I say
there are no infinities
no infinity plus one;
since infinity cannot exist in the first place
and cannot even be conceived
it is impossible to add one to it.

There are zero infinities
not just because infinity doesn’t exist,
but because zero does not exist.
In reality
there are zero zeros.

In this way
zero and infinity are the same
sweet nothings in the human soul
and the minds of mathematicians.

How many mathematicians you ask?
A countable number
a number that exists
something, not nothing.

Nothing is not real
not unreal
not surreal
simply not
but not even not, since “not” is just another way
of expressing zero.

Still, for us humans
nothing is something
so much more consequential 
than infinity.
 
I have no money
zero
nothing.

When you are broke
nothing is everything.

Ethan Goffman accidentally became a poet by

tagging along with his wife, the far more talented, harder working, and

prettier Marianne Szlyk, to poetry workshops. He is still not sure how or why,

but somehow Kelsay Books has recently published his first volume of

poetry, Words

for Things Left Unsaid.