Rime of a Sleepless Worrier

Poetry

Some people might say that I am a rhymer rather than a poet. I have had the ability to make rhyming lines fairly easily, but I like to think that my poetry has more in it than just rhyme. I love imagery–the sights, sounds, smells, feels and movements of natural things, and I try to make my poetry very concrete and real. For some reason, funerals have been a very large part of my poetic efforts, I suppose because poems celebrate a life better than mere speech. At any rate, I have included some poetry here, and I hope you like it. As always, the subject matter is very diverse.

Here is a poem I wrote while Molly, my wife, was teaching calculus. Her students had told her that they did not understand poetry: that the subject matter was so obscure, meaningless, and irrelevant. She replied that poetry could be about anything. They rebutted by saying, “Right! I suppose you could write a poem about mathematics!” Taking the challenge, she said, “Yes, you could write a poem about math.” “Let us see one then,” they countered. Molly came home and told me the story. “Is there some way we can make a poem about math?” she queried. I said, “Well, if you will help me with the terminology, I will try.” Here is what we came up with.

TRIGONOMETRY
By Dan Spier

There is nothing in life so darn hectic
As a brain in a course trigonometric.
I had much rather study invasions
Of Vandals and Huns than equations.
And especially ones like quadratics!
They’re fit only for fools and fanatics!
While my social life sits and relaxes,
My dumb brain is a blur of Y-axes.
Even tangents and points of inflection,
Make me suffer a loss of direction.
While derivatives—both first and second,
Are a little bit more than I reckoned.
When old fractions turn inverse proportions,
My sinuses go through contortions.
My domain is as strange as an ocean,
And my slope and my range? I’ve no notion!
I think radians are tires for one’s auto,
And determinants words for one’s motto.
Logarithms sound right for percussion,
And matrices good for discussion.
But my function’s velocity’s dropping,
And I sense by acceleration stopping.
My vertex’s endpoint—it dangles,
As I’m swallowed in huge right triangles.
All my maximums minimum weakly,
As my anti-log poem ends bleakly,
I guess if one thinks perpendiculous,
Trigonometry’s not so ridiculous.

Of panting love and desperation
On sleepless nights I used to croon
My lusty respiration sparked
By ardent light of silv’ry moon

But now on wint’ry nights so drear
I simply totter off to bed
With breathing mask and all its gear
Another sleepless night to dread.

Like clockwork though I feel the call
At ten and two and four
And off I shuffle down the hall
The tee tee’s at the door!

Of course I take a pill for that
And lots of other stuff
No matter where the ailment’s are
One pill is not enough!

I have a pill for thyroid
And one for inner ear
I don’t have one for typhoid
But lots more, never fear!

Blood pressure takes a double dose
Preservision too for eyes
For leg cramps there’s another one
And cream for itching thighs.

I have an Epi-pin for stings
And Bi-pap when I sleep
For venous insufficiency
A steroid rub I keep

There’s Symbicort for shortened breath
Albuterol helps too
Lasix drains the fluid off
And runs me to the loo!

My God, you say, how do you keep
Those medications straight
Well, I have a dedicated lovely wife
Makes sure I’m up to date

At my age healthy living
Is quite a daunting chore
It takes a lot of medicine
And patience by the score.

But pardon all my whining
I’ve done it quite some time
Just never said it quite this way
In melancholic rhyme.