In defense of Euclid (was: Einstein's dream)

[matsunosuperfan]

Einstein's dream

As my fevered brain struggled to rest
Euclid's phantom appeared. He professed
That equal inclines 
Of neighborly lines 
Made them slightly standoffish at best.

And so sensibly Euclid explained 
His art so pellucidly planed 
With crafty designs 
Full of parallel lines
That my wilder theories were shamed.

For so much of life it made clear! 
The Truths that we came to hold dear, 
Three wrongs make a right, 
A square knot is tight, 
An arrow flies straight through the air!

I tried to explain the contortions
Of spacetime when bent by distortions
That slow down the flight
Of matter or light,
Quite kindly, in single-page portions.

But for Beauty the ghost held his ground, 
And he measured my room all around. 
With its lengths so mismatched 
A black hole should have hatched!
— On my nightstand this message I found:

"Even fools know that Beauty's a flower. 
Savor space and time, feel a cool shower. 
Stretch out youth's affine hopes 
Along curved grassy slopes; 
Climb wrinkled the ivory tower."

Good work with the limerick form! I think this poem needs to make up its mind. At first I was like "uh oh..." Then I quickly realized we were having fun, and grabbed my popcorn. 

But the last stanza really leaves me scratching my head. I'm waiting for the punchline but instead it seems... almost earnest? At the same time, the verse collapses - "youth's affine hopes" is so hard to say aloud, and the last line is just so much tortured syntax. 

So, if it's gonna be funny, I suggest actually making it funny

Also I think it's simply too long. If you ended after S3 I wouldn't be mad