Best Trig Poems
This picture I pick is not her own,
It could be for a bimbo or a night trig.
This picture with me is not her own,
It could be for a sissy or a bleaching wig.
This picture I hold is not her own,
It could be for a lousy or a neglected lass.
This picture with me is not her own,
It could be for a demon or a girlie class.
This picture I pick is no doubt her own,
It's obvious in her spotless face and her passionate grin.
This picture with me is really her own,
It's obvious in her modest crown and her sincere chin.
This picture I hold is no doubt her own,
It's obvious in her ideal stroll with her gorgeous rose.
This picture with me is really her own,
It's obvious in her charming blouse and her classy pose.
The Power of the Tron
Said the Big Computer to the Human Computee:
“Without me, sir, you must concur,
Wherever would you be?
I tally all your numbers, and I even give advice,
Unlike you, I’m objective and predictably precise.
‘Way down my epicenter, I’ve a calculating brain
That can compile, compute, compound, expound, explore, explain.
Oh, don’t you wish you had my wits, if only an iota,
For I’ve more news than I can use -
I'm programmed to my quota.”
And on and on it carried on, continuing to scoff,
Until the Human Computee reached down and turned it OFF.
And now The Big Computer sits there idle all the day,
Without a boasting, bragging, calculating thing to say,
While on the chair, beside it there, the Human Factor lingers,
Computing trig and calculus by counting on its fingers,
And when its used its fingers up, it can simply transpose
And still deduce, deduct, add up, by counting on its toes!
Take heed, you Mighty IBMs, and other pedigrees,
Before you get too taken with your capabilities –
You may have stores of knowledge;
You may be an Alpha Tron,
But it’s the Human Digit
Ultimately
Turns
You
ON.
My butt is just so damn big
10 Irish men could do a jig
5 truckers could park their rig
16 Miners could plan a dig
9 drummers could perform a gig
2 Elephants could take a swig
22 college kids could do their trig
If only I’d eat less like a pig!
*For Susan's self exaggeration contest :)
To be sung to the tune of Both Sides Now by Judy Collins
Rows and rows of subtrahends
Repeating decimals without end
Regression lines to mark a trend
I've looked at numbers that way
But now they only add up wrong
Even though I stayed up all night long
Like missing words in someone's song
Words that seem to say
chorus
I've looked at numbers from both sides now
From left and right and still somehow
It's numbers' illusions I recall
I really don't know numbers at all
Secants, tangents, arc-cosines
It seems like just a game sometimes
What's my number, what's my line?
I've looked at trig that way.
Now all my graphs have gone awry
I've lost the will to find out why
Perhaps they'll make more sense by 'n' by
But who am I to say?
chorus
I've looked at trig from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's trig's illusions I recall
I really don't know trig at all
Edited 5/9/2016
Written 7/14/1986
The Mathematics Plague
By Elton Camp
It’s a fact of modern life we must face
Mathematics holds an important place
Arithmetic, basic algebra, geometry too
All are important skills for me and you
Of the people, only a tiny percent require
Advanced algebra, trig, calculus or higher
An educational development to abhor
Is to require all to take more and more
So much of it is of virtually no worth
To ninety-nine percent of folks on earth
Quadratic equations I’ve never had to solve
Nothing ever have those inequities involved
So far, I’ve gotten along in life just fine
Without using tangent, secant or cosine
Nor has it, even once, been of value to know
How fast, to overtake a car, I’d have to go
But we are making school increasingly tough
By continuing to teach our kids such stuff
It’s high time somebody cried out, “Enough!”
And childhood slavery to higher math rebuff
Check clock
A white light burst expanding across the sheet
Blue ruled lines blur to nothing
Clear against the paper.
I can’t see them, or the graphite symbols
But I know they are there.
I wrote them
Another failed attempt at grasping attention.
The professor’s voice cuts through the moment
High pitched, harmonious
Her accent harmonizing the mathematical enlightenment
A series of statements strung together
Punctuated by silences
An expectation of some sort of outpouring of understanding.
After a pause, she resumes
Leaving another potential for exposure averted for now.
The green marker fades against the white board
It is also putting forth a minimal effort.
The chapter and section offer a temporal landmark
A quantifiable measurement of how far I am behind.
Another pause
Silence
She gazes across the board
A battlefield of green example problems and red functions
Even she is confused by the carnage.
A mathematical expression lays stunned
But not dead
Suddenly, a light flickers, shining from behind her eyes
A moment of triumph.
She resumes, renewed
While I fade farther into the back
Attempting to become one with the off beige wall.
My mind is blank, almost clear
So much so that I can feel the blood rush through my veins
I try to trace a single cell through my body
But I realize I don’t remember that much detail on the circulatory system.
My adventure aborted, my gaze returns to the clock
Check clock
I am only interested in a line of pi, 180°
As in 6:45pm
Time to leave.
Miss Jill may find a way.
As I thought about your kindness
And the kids you teach at school.
I pondered how any help can come
From the ink of this old fool.
Is there any value in his work?
Reading some rhymes could be fun.
The one about the little bear cubs
Out for a daily, adventurous run.
Some might be too sad.
Miss Hattie moving on.
Or The Last Christmas Goose
May not be the perfect one.
But maybe the real lesson here
Is not so plain for all to see.
Hidden now from ‘plainer’ view.
The real lessons just may be.
For the student with no interest
There’s the image of this old man.
Wanting in his waning years
To share stories the best he can.
But with no formal schoolin’
He’s left to merely wallow.
For he is left to do his best
With no clear path to follow
Had he known long years ago
That his ageing head would fill.
With rhyming words to share
He’d have swallowed a”poets” pill.
Practiced all the little tricks
Those teachers teach in schools.
Spelling, punctuation and grammar
All have their ‘poetic’ rules.
When “oldbuck” was young
Those 70 long years before.
He couldn’t imagine what
He’d need those hard rules for.
But like trigonometry skills.
It would takes some 50 years
Before he’d need that stuff
Long stored between his ears.
He’s trying for a better job
They assumed that he could do
But to just make sure of that
There were”trig” problems, not a few.
There he was in a tight spot.
It was important he do his best.
He called upon old stuff he’d learned
Cramming for a 9th grade test.
So maybe that’s the hidden value
The real worth of all you’ll find.
It’s not the stories that he’s told
It’s how they spark young minds.
So if you find some value here.
If you can use them as examples
Of broken rules or faulty use.
You will find so many samples. :o(
If I’ve sparked your interest
I wish you luck as you look now.
To see if any of what’s been “writ”
Could now be used somehow.
* * * * * * * * *
Written by oldbuck May 1st 2017
as he thought about Miss Jill and
the clever little students that await
her voice each day.
How could those silly rhymes
be used with them in any way?
I remember when I was small and life was simple,
When you got what you wanted by flashing your dimples,
When the homework was what’s two plus two,
When the hardest thing was tying your shoe,
When the most boring thing was when naptime came around,
When you would get in trouble for the smallest of sounds.
But know things aren’t quite a simple,
Not an inch of your face found without a pimple,
Now the homework is Trig and Biology,
Piling it on, no emotion, yielding to no plea,
It’s not just tying them; the shoes have to look nice too,
You have to know what’s it, whether it pink, red, or blue,
Now if only I could find a good position to sleep,
In this pile of homework that has become shoulder deep.
And here we are again nearly 50 years later,
Things still not being too much greater,
Past all the times when we though our lives where tough,
Living in the time where our heir is gray and skin is tough,
Still where the cloths you wore as a kid,
And the kids now where what your parents always did.
You realize that you are the homework now,
What happened 9/11, who did it, why and how,
You squint your eyes, wishing the light was dim,
It’s not the pimples now; it’s the wrinkles that replaced them,
Know you’re ready for that nap taken so many times before,
So you lie back in your chair and lean your head towards the floor…
The timing was right and the weather was good
To climb Cadair Idris, I knew that I could.
I was up for the challenge, not much longer to wait –
Leave the car in the lay-by and go through the gate.
As I strode through the field with the wind in my face
I knew I must keep up a good walking pace,
Penygader to conquer before the night falls,
The ridge to the summit with steep granite walls.
The path it was rocky, the path it was steep,
As I rounded the corner I encountered a sheep.
He looked rather startled, but no more than I –
I hadn’t expected to see one this high.
My legs were complaining, my breathing was rough,
I thought it’d be tricky, but not quite this tough !
I rested a while by the shores of Llyn Cau
Where a legendary dragon King Arthur did drown.
Then on to the summit, to Idris’s Chair,
This place is a fortress, the Welsh giant’s lair.
And here is the trig-point and Wow ! What a view !
Looking down on the lake that’s so deep and so blue.
Pity the fool who lives by numbers
He counts his sheep while the sagacious slumbers
Imagines triangles equal or obtuse
Then numbers his thoughts by hypotenuse.
He dreams of trig and long division
Then stimulates his mind with a rhombus prism
Wet duvets caused by a linear quantify
He counts his orgasms by using pi.
Correlation coefficients make him smile
Exercises measured by the metric mile
A career built on a quadratic path
An idiotic devotion to anus numbing math.
We climbed to Keppel Cove and pitched our tents,
others camped at Grizedale Tarn by the shore.
From either side we agreed to make ascents
getting up early on Sunday before
other hikers would be reaching the top.
By compass ascending through murk and mist
above the clouds to emerge on an outcrop
with views to exceed what any had wished.
On to the summit we came together
with friends from the south who beat us to it;
blessed as we were with glorious weather.
On the trig point I blessed a ship's biscuit
a beaker of sherry shared as a sign
of Communion with a view so divine.
I see it in my dream
I see a steady blue light.
My REM force increases,
Then suddenly it ceases.
Blue light begins to blink.
Though twitching, I'm awake.
My mouth is dry, I cannot think.
Wobbly on my feet, I shake.
The kitchen comes to view.
Once there, I see it shining.
My coffee maker is new.
The steaming process is refining.
So uncomplicated! I don't need trig.
I am loving my new Keurig.
For a St Patty’s day jig I need a pink pig.
His dog was irritated. His name was Quig.
I can dance a jig, just give me a swig.
His master shook his head, off popped his wig.
I need a jazzy curly-tailed dancer, he said to Quig.
The only one good enough will have to be a pig.
I can dance any way you want; I can do a jig!
I can zag, I can sashay, I can slide, and I can zig
His master took another swig of his cig.
Your ideas are admirable, your loyalty is big.
You go take the test for me tomorrow in trig.
I will be finding a pig to dance the Irish jig.
Last night; had to study for trig homework,
I was so tired, but I had to stay awake.
Too many problems that I went berserk;
Took my time; I could not make a mistake.
When I finished, I started seeing stuff,
A Pterodactyl was staring me down.
Began to shake in my bones; I wasn’t tough,
House was so quiet no one was around.
I thought to self “He’s going to eat me!”
I had to think fast, too young to get ate.
To my surprise, homework was ate with glee,
But I was mad; I stayed up way too late.
Was I dreaming, or was it a real smirk?
Who knows, but he was an absolute jerk.
Inspired by the “And Then a Flaming Pterodactyl
Ate My Homework.” Contest
02/02/2021
Raise up the oars,
get ready to row
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
start rocking the boat
Lay down the law,
be on the swivel scold
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
ropes are tightening throats
Don’t kill the messenger
bringing the bad news
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
you got nothing to lose
Night of the reaper,
death is on a grim prowl
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
your life has been sold out
Try to circle the square,
make bad geometry do good trig
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
Six feet ain’t deep enough to dig
Holla conspiracy loud,
as the cell door slams to your cage
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
new guineas be squealing with rage
Raise up the oars,
it’s a go on the freedom revolt
Fiddy cents to a dollar,
slaves are overturning the boat