<br/>Coach Mock — Dan Spier

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.

Ode to Coach Mock on Reaching His Eighty-Fifth Birthday

You had to know the painful thump
That cracked your crewcut head,
Was Coach Mock's college senior ring:
I swear it felt like lead!
He'd sneak up on you from behind,
When you were goofing 'round,
And smack you with that lethal gem--
The whole room heard the sound.
It was not done from hate or spite:
Coach Mock was not that kind.
He merely wanted us to be
The best kids you could find.
He would not let us tardy be,
Or turn in sloppy work.
In homeroom or in drawing class
You could not be a jerk.
It was that way in coaching too--
No matter what the sport.
He taught us fundamentals sound
On diamond, field, or court.
We learned to bunt and slide and steal
And how to play defense.
He gave us detailed scouting tips
His theories made great sense.
The honeysuckle bloomed each May;
Its sweet smell blended in
With cracking bats and crisp line drives,
At baseball time again.
The licorice tang of Beech-nut chew,
The pungent cigar smoke,
The lazy batting practice curve,
The burn of ice-cold Coke.
Bubba Louie rolling in the dirt;
Miss Dorothy looking down;
The Brown Bus full of bats and gear
To play somewhere 'round the town.
Coach Mock let us have our fun,
We Eagles liked to sin!
But more important he taught pride
And the fiercest will to win.
We know he scouted for the Reds,
And taught at other schools.
But Murphy's own he'll always be
In Eagledom HE RULES!
And now we scarcely can believe
This day it did arrive,
That Coach is celebrating many years:
He's turning eighty-five.
You helped to make us what we are
No matter what our call.
So, Coach, sincerely, we wish you
Happy Birthday from us all.
Murphy High School
Class of 1962