”Only the line between good luck and bad sunders the bitter outlook from the glad.”

Chris Yu, poet

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Tractatus: Caliban Reads Wittgenstein
by Chris Yu

(1.1) The world’s the total sum of all the facts,
which means a poor account of human
acts:
(1.2) into lone atoms logic will divide
the world, cool as a parent who has lied.
(2.0131) To make out rouge from sanguine is to
see.
This thing of darkness I acknowledge me.
(3.144) As speech provides us with scant means to
name
our situations, whom are we to blame
(5.632) for our estrangement from the lives we
live,
the soundwaves, odors, weight, the face
you love?
(6.43) Only the line between good luck and bad
sunders the bitter outlook from the glad.
(7.01) The words you lately left me to rehearse
taught me to make a playground of a curse.