The Christmas Card Poem

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.

Fold, sign, stuff and stamp,
My coffee spilled, so now they're damp.
I want to write a word to all
But clever words I can't recall
I’ve sampled all the latest news
And studied all the current views
On race and sex and recent wars:
All the againsts and all the fors,
Deciding last to leave such stuff
We’ve angered everyone enough.
Focus on what’s humorous
In common glee for all of us.
Rudolph and old Santa too
Can bring a smile to me and you.
Christmas carol’s words are fun
To twist into a clever pun.
Traditions that we all adore
Like stockings, tinsel, gifts galore
Bring out the kid in everyone—
Christmas is a lot of fun!
Then try to draw a comic scene
That illustrates the greeting’s theme
Try not to smudge the fresh-laid ink
Or make Old Santa’s coat too pink.
But if you mess up, do not worry
Begin again and do not hurry.
You’ve had a year to hatch a plan,
Your clever sketch will work, my man.
So blot your desk, clean up the mess,
Enjoy the task in happiness!
The card will bring them lots of cheer
At Christmas time again this year!

"Merry Christmas", Dan Spier 2022