Best Pythagoras Poems
Pythagoras once fell off a ladder
And landed on a venomous adder
This adder couldn't add
Calculus made it sad
Algebra and theorems made it madder.
Love of truth
the very light of Greece
A peninsula thrust out
like a bony hand,
‘God-tormented Greece,’
Zeus exclaimed,
“I shall give man ‘an evil,’ as the price of fire:
They will clasp destruction with laughter of desire.”
The Gods live on-even though obscure.
Fate rules them too, as Zeus learns
the heroes must die; and the greater
the heroism the earlier the death.
Greece being, itself so divided
between the rational and irrational,
between logic and instinct,
between the scientific and the magical,
between the state of self possession
and that of being possessed,
and one can continue……
between symmetry and diversity,
between the recognition of limits
and the pursuit of the limitless,
between restraint and vaulting ambitions,
or hubris, Pythagoras in all his wisdom
could achieve no resolution or harmonia.
Of all these diverse elements, what was
greatest in him, and in Greece,
was the recognition of these conflicts
for what they were…….
that by grappling with them
a better order in life might then arise.
Ambition is to play the Cello
Becoming a most talented fellow
Cellists make such sumptuous sounds
Delighting audiences the whole world round
Encouragement to take up lessons
From former cellist Hubert Hasbeen
Grimacing when he hears me play
Hasbeen lasted a week and a day
I was downhearted ~ I began to cry
Just when I spied her grandeur from the corner of my eye
Keyboard ~ Kettle drum ~ neither one did I desire
Laughing loudly I had found the one to set the world on fire
My heart it skipped a beat as I approached her silver feet
Nothing else would do for me the sound was so unique
Once I stood in front of her she smiled ~ it was so sweet
Playfully I stroked her keys as I began to feel at ease
Quivering with excitement and dropping to my knees
Resolute to practice every day and every night
Stoically determined to reach my ultimate peak
The Royal Philharmonic well they called me up one day
Unknown to me they’d heard my work and wanted me to play
Vowing to do my very best
When I auditioned with the rest
Xylophonist extraordinaire
Yells and cheers from all my peers
Zenith reached as played Pythagoras’ music of the spheres
Written 9th February 2020
Contest ABECEDARIAN
Sponsor Caren Krutsinger
1st PLACE
Contest Strand Select J
Sponsor Brian Strand
2nd PLACE
Long before Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians and Greeks,
Before Hammurabi, Sargon and Ramses ruled
The world below their feet;
Before biblical scenes and mythological dreams
Of magical carpet rides,
I knew you back then
Where sea breezes begin
And history was a gleam in your eye...
Alexandria, Alexandria, city of pleasure and pain,
They called you Ricotis as I recall
Earth Mother once called you by name.
Nestled on the Mediterranean Sea of monsters,
Pirates and explorers renowned,
You were not much more than desert floor
Until the conqueror came to town.
Alexander, Alexander, God-man, ruler-thought divine,
Sailed by your winds where the world begins
And knowledge was born and thrived.
In the halls of those palaces and places
He built from his own vision quest,
To rule a world of enlightened beings
Where all people could achieve their best.
Though he never quite saw your white marble walls,
With pillars of gold and blue;
Of the Serapeum filled with scholarly souls
Recording their own world view.
He never knew Pythagoras, philosopher, scientist extraordinaire;
Or the historians Philo and Josephus
And the volumes of memories they shared.
The early Christians, Church Fathers and Saints
Origen, Clement and Mark;
Alexander never knew what he finally did
When he gave you that worldly start.
You’ve seen the Pharos come and go,
Dynasties crumble and fall;
Romans and Greeks swept right off their feet
And Cleopatra’s castle walls.
Pagans, Jews and Christians too
All vying for your love;
As whispering winds of Freemason friends
Tell of Hermes below and above.
While Islam and Mohammed rule
In the shadow of the Sphinx,
Pyramids and temples filled with hieroglyphs
And obelisks that make you
Stop and think…
Alexandria, Alexandria, city of pleasure and pain;
So little I’ve spoken about you today
Compared to all I’ve gained.
Since the first day I once met you
In that dream so way back when…
Alexandria, Alexandria, so glad we’re still
Good friends.
A mathematician, I am not
How to figure I forgot.
Forget the hypotenuse,
For it ain’t no use.
Pythagoras, keep your theorem,
For it causes me delirium.
A mere child said he’d explain,
With a smirk to cover disdain.
“Three 3s are 9; four 4s are 16.
Stay with me, and see what I mean.
Add 9 and 16 for 25.
And then the hypotenuse comes alive.”
By this time I was feeling quite glum.
So, I chimed in, not to sound dumb.
“The square root of 25 is 5,” I smiled.
“You’ve got it, Mister,” replied the child.
Right then I knew without doubt,
When my wife and I ride about,
Our traveling miles will greatly reduce,
When we take the slanting hypotenuse.
While taking stock of the library
Here in my home today, I found myself
Considering all the pages throughout the years
For which I’ve dearly paid. Voluminous
Paragraphs, chapters and verses from
Adam and Eve to Zen like prayers;
Trying to count the cost of so many books
Makes me wonder why I care. About
Astronomy and astrology, connections
Between all things; cosmology,
Biology, psychology and dreams.
Alchemy and metaphysics,
Landing on the moon;
Plato and Pythagoras,
The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy flying
Back home in a balloon. Still turning
Pages of ancient history, Egyptology,
Mythology and man’s search
For meaning within;
Aristotle, Shakespeare, Newton, Einstein wondering
What’s the secret to the universe and how
Did it begin?
Quantum physics, alien visits,
Lost without a clue;
Plants and flowers, greed and power
And why the sky is blue. Light and darkness,
Love and hate,
The Crusades and other wars;
The vanity and insanity of
Whatever we’re fighting for. Still more
Encyclopedias left to read before I’m through,
Having hardly skimmed the surface of what
Good books are meant to do.
If we take the time to sift and find
The nuggets of treasure within;
The price of a book can be priceless
And make a head and brain like supernova stars
Splendiferously spin.
I stopped by your desk to say hello today
As I so often do
To a lovely, young secretary like you.
Others may have thought something was amiss
Because I’m an older man and therefore,
My intentions must be nothing less
Than stealing your sweet kiss. But of course,
You and I know better than this…
Our conversation centered on the very stuff of stars: Creation Itself,
So near and yet so far. We wandered through the labyrinth of
History, time and space; debating transmigration
And the nature of God’s own face.
You quoted Jesus perfectly
As if you knew Him sure as rain;
While Plato, Philo and Pythagoras
All joined in our coffee break game.
Until we both agreed in the mystery
Of love, life and death;
Then saying goodbye with a twinkle in the eye and
“I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
Just another day with a beautiful girl
With a soul as wise as the wind…
Secrets revealed from invisible fields
Where beauty lies deeper than skin.
So forgive me if my intentions
Look less than they truly are.
But beyond the smile lie miles and miles
From the soul to the first bright star.
The Hyper-Logos of Good Living
A poem about how to live a more balanced and harmonious life inspired by Ancient Greek Wisdom
Avoid being vicious and malevolent,
Instead, be magnanimous and benevolent.
Express, in myriad ways, your goodness
And be polemic and quixotic in your kindness.
Let your friendship be all-encompassing and egregious,
And incite your gentleness to be ongoing and ubiquitous.
Be laconic in speaking and attentive in listening
While adamant in pursuing truth and love expressing.
Do not let other passers-by in your life enervate you,
Making you expend your time and energy in ephemeral efforts.
Pray to Benevolent God, Almighty to exculpate you,
Making you remove your human passions and tribulations.
Live your life in a way, quite humble and ascetic,
Avoiding all expressions of senseless acrimony.
Never be a bitter character and sour acerbic,
Choose instead, sweetness and melodious harmony.
Replace your human soul’s traits of cacophony
With our only God’s manifestations of clemency.
Do not employ, ever, credulity
Nor overdue, futile cupidity.
On reaching old age, strive not to be an anathema
But instead, a councelor, like the ancient Athena.
Drive yourself away from social antipathy
With the greatest value of alacrity.
Always taking into deep consideration the following 2 things:
1. The concept of ‘Hyper-logos’ defines the holistic integration of the Aristotelian aspects of Ethos (Character), Pathos (Emotions) and Logos (Logic, Reasoning, Accountability, Responsibility) in conducting one’s own affairs in life; and
2. The following wise sayings of the ancient Greeks:
Democritus: ‘It is an act of magnanimity for someone to withstand vicious acts with humility and gentleness’.
Pythagoras: ‘Seek the true value of all things, and enjoy all gifts of God according to Measure’.
Oh, ancient Greece,
How much you have filled my soul.
The aesthetics of your kind,
Are more than satisfied
By your beautiful eyes.
The epics of grace,
Odysseus and Helen’s sublime face.
The war between two cities,
And a tale of returning to beauty.
The dialectic of Socrates trial,
The Christ before Christ on clouds much higher.
The dialogues devoted to supreme justice,
By Plato’s divine universals.
Aristotle’s poetics devoted to the epics,
And particulars brought by the golden ethical’s.
Sappho and her poetry,
Herodotus and a tale of histories.
The land of marble devoted to democracy,
The Spartan grandeur and Athenian cultured society.
The Oedipus complex brought to Sophocles.
Vengeful acts by Media for adultery.
I sing joy to all the tragedies,
Aeschylus and the dance of the Eumenides.
The Minoan society and the island of Crete,
Greek culture and so much to keep.
Athena the bright eyed goddess of wisdom,
Came of Zeus, our lord of Jupiter.
Juno and her rivals in the kingdom,
Brought us tales of jealousy for the future.
The pre-Socratics of philosophy,
Thales, Heracleitus, and Anaximenes.
The golden verses of Pythagoras,
And the sophist named Protagoras.
Aristotle’s pupil brought grandeur to the dream,
Alexander the great extended the means.
The logic, the literature, and the home of philosophy,
Mythology, and the tragedies, histories of epic poetry.
The things that have been and will always be,
I will always remember the glory that was Greece.
The crazy beliefs of Pythagoras
On beans and their fruits simply stagger us,
But what he deduces
Of hypotenuses
Still earns him the right to be swaggerous.
Drinking this bubonic tonic
with sonic running through my veins,
making these feelings seem platonic
and the world a bit brighter and better
with these quadraphonic sounds
and with these hydroponic pounds
of this atomic chronic
i'm not so shallow and bitter.
every sound electronic,
and made monophonic,
the dances moves suffer,
all anamatronic
until that iconic bass drop
starts attacking tectonics
with so much Napoleonic rage,
it moves these symphonics
to super, hyper, ultrasonic.
johnny mnuemonic's
not just hooked on phonics anymore,
but instead he's a supersonic supernova
among the stars a Casanova
exploding with the
sounds of natures conics
that would make Pythagoras proud,
the demonic harmonics echo behind him
like a shadow fading as the sun goes down.
**Friends , breaking my composition into sections , due lenght restrictions **
Thales :The First Philosopher Scientist :-
Thales visited Egypt to study geometry ,
And also developed his unusual mathematical
ability !
Back in 585 BC he became very famous , -
By accurately predicting an eclipse of the sun !
Those early days of antiquity , had no clear
divisions between science and philosophy !
With philosophy , science , and mathematics , -
all were rolled into one ;
Thales became very renowned for his theorems !
One theorem stated that when you draw a triangle ,
Inside a semi-circle , it always had a right angle !
He was the first to introduce the process of
deduction , -
Deriving mathematical statements from logical
observations !
He was an exceptional man of antiquity ,
Much ahead of his time , - deserving publicity !
ANAXIMANDER (611-546 BC) :
Had introduced the sun-dial into Greece .
His treaties ‘On Nature’ was the first
philosophical work in Greek prose , -
Which the people of Greece had ever known !
For him the ‘arche’ was the ‘Boundless or
the Infinite’;
A space filling animate mass , a kind of
mysterious mixture ,
From which all things arose through
separation ,
Whose true nature he never described , -
Specifically or otherwise , in all his
deliberations !
ANAXIMENES (588-524 BC) :
A pupil of Anaximander - declared it was
air , mist or vapor ,
Which held the key to all reality forever !
From air all things arose through rarefaction
and condensation ;
Rarefied air into fire gets blown !
But when condensed it transformed into , -
Wind , cloud , water , earth and stone !
Man’s soul which is air , holds him together ,
So does the air which envelopes the earth -
sustaining all matter !
Since all changes are produced by motion ,
and motion being eternal ;
Further clarification he felt was not needed ,
and had nothing more to tell !
These Milesians with their innovative philosophy ,
Tried to seek a single explanation for the universe ,
and its multiplicity ! (To be continued with Pythagoras
of Samos next !) -Raj Nandy .
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Pythagoras was a mathematician.
He taught mathematics in ancient Greece.
He created a now-famous theorem.
You can bisect a rectangle or square.
Draw a line between opposite corners.
This will result in two right triangles.
The two sides opposite each right angle
are commonly called a “hypotenuse“.
The sum of the squares of the base and height,
equal the square of the hypotenuse.
For centuries of ancient thought
cosmic harmonies have been sought
in the vast eternal motion
of the grand galactic ocean.
To some the twinkling sky inspires
poems about celestial choirs.
But if those serenades occur
it’s just as if they never were,
since sounds of stars cannot be heard
‘tis said, not even by a bird,
nor bat or dolphin, beast or man;
for frequencies are higher than
any species of mammal can
detect in auditory span.
Albeit space may ‘silent’ be,
the waves traverse that spatial sea,
which scientists convert to sound.
Plus other systems have been found.
With asteroseismology,
a useful methodology,
“starquake” flickers of light can turn
into sonancy to discern.
Still, stars are sounding on their own,
with song motifs as yet unknown,
Aural hums and thrums they render
symphonize great Nature’s splendor
in astro-plasma pulses strange
from universe’s tonal range,
like resonance of bells immense
ariose in a stellar sense,
with strains, refrains sidereal,
majestic sounds ethereal.
Is there a unifying theme
melodious in heavens’ scheme?
If only humans had the ears
to hear the music of the spheres!
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
“Each celestial body, in fact each and every atom, produces a particular sound on account of its movement, its rhythm or vibration. All these sounds and vibrations form a universal harmony in which each element, while having its own function and character, contributes to the whole.” ~ Pythagoras
Inspiration derived from article with image, “Have researchers discovered the sound of the stars?”
The Three Pearls of Life
A poem about the three princesses of my life, inspired by Ancient Greek Wisdom
S, M and M are the three pearls of my existence
Giving my poor life, God’s harmonious essence
As they kindly provide my soul with pure energy
To travel along the pathways of flowing serenity
For they taught me how to be really better
As my troubled psyche strives to travel
Searching for places to eventually go
And wicked habits to quickly forego
I pray to Him to make them always happy
For I truly love them all, to heaven’s eternity
As their sentiments rain upon me all the time
Making my emotions never to take a slow stride
Come on my beautiful princesses, rejoice,
Let happiness be your only life’s choice
For I need you more than my continuous breath
As you pacify my long journeys upon this Earth
Always taking into deep consideration the meaning of the following ancient Greek Sayings:
Anaxagoras: ‘The seed of everything is in everything else’.
Aristotle: ‘Family is the cell of life’.
Pythagoras: ‘Love of husband and wife is requisite for parentage on its highest plane’;
Seven Sages: ‘Honor your family’. ‘Love the people you feed’. ‘Be kind to your own people’. ‘Govern and protect your family’.
Sophocles: ‘Be beneficial to others with what you have and what you can; it’s your most kind act’.