Inspired Poetry

[kb83]

Nietszche is smiling. Thanks, LLapp!

I don't know if this is permitted, but I think it would be better to reverse lines 3 and 4, i.e.

"...She loved to quote Pascal
And danced like a rascal,
... Now she's tenured and done with that phase."

[Eureka]

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." — Blaise Pascal

dovid1946
June 2, 2015, 9:03 am
There was once a stripper who called herself 'BLAZE PASCAL'. She was probably some philosophy major who couldn't get a job philosophizing.

kb83
March 14, 2016, 7:29 am
There once was a stripper named Blaze, Her philosophy did all amaze, She danced like a rascal, And loved to quote Pascal,

LLapp
February 6, 2019, 7:32 pm
. . . Now she's tenured and done with that phase.

[kb83]

I wrote a limerick to this, inspired by Llapp’s information about Trotsky. But I thought surely it would appear in this comment thread, but it did not, so here it is (I saved it):

"Under all conditions well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points. " — Leon Trotsky

kb83
April 21, 2014, 9:27 am
who is the "him"?
tskaggs6
September 24, 2014, 11:34 am
I would guess Stalin. They didn't get on all that well you know.
kb83
October 15, 2015, 3:03 am
I verified your guess, tskaggs6. Well done! It was in an unfinished biography of Stalin by Trotsky.
LLapp
January 18, 2017, 3:34 pm
'He never talked about politics. He was a schnorrer! All he cared about was who would pay for his lunch!" - My grandfather, remembering Lev Bronstein during his Lower East Side days
Persephone59
December 12, 2017, 9:26 pm
I understand he was also lovers with Frida Kahlo, and moved in the same circles as she and her husband, Diego Rivera.
LLapp
July 15, 2018, 5:05 pm
He was deeply steeped in the arts. My grandpa knew him as part of his theater-going crowd.
Eureka
November 17, 2022, 6:44 pm
Amazing, LLapp!

There was a young fellow named Trotsky,
A Communist chap, not a Nazi,
"From each who can feed,
To me what I need,
It's y'all who are paying, it's not me"

[kb83]

Here's another self-promotion. I added line breaks.

"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing." — Warren Spahn

kb83
March 6, 2018, 3:57 am
Here's a haiku:

Hitting is timing.
Pitching is breaking timing.
All the rest is spin.

[LLapp]

^ Kb83, if I had written that, I would have a hard time not posting it myself. It’s a delightful rhyme, and, given random quote selection and difficulty level, many of us would never get to read it otherwise.

[kb83]

At the risk of self-promotion. (I added line breaks)

"While Australia is superficially referred to as a continental nation, upon closer scrutiny, it is in fact an archipelago."
— Asher Judah


kb83
August 13, 2023, 4:21 pm

A tourist from old San Diego
Tried renting a big Winnebago,
To see all Australia,
He thought, (inter alia,)
But it was an archipelago.

[LLapp]

Thanks . . . I actually kind of cringed when I saw it. But I do like the second line.

[kb83]

Nice, Llapp! The rhythm reminds me of one of Piet Hein's "grooks."

[hrossa]

This is awesome!

[Eureka]

Hilarious!

"The man is either mad, or he is making verses." -- Horace

LLapp
March 7, 2016, 1:49 pm
My solve time was bad, and that makes me mad;
but what's even worse is, I'm still making verses.

[LLapp]

More on Pope's syntax-twisting, with more carriage returns added for the poetry.


'Tis not enough your counsel still be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
— Alexander Pope

Disturbed1
August 9, 2019, 3:05 pm
If there was one person's quotes I could remove from this site, it would be this guy. I'm not sure why. There are a lot of nonsensical quotes on here (I'm looking at you Brault and Beiber), but I cringe every time I see Pope's name.

kb83
May 3, 2020, 9:25 pm
Well, he is required to rhyme in iambic pentameter. Any kernels of wisdom are gravy.

kb83
August 10, 2020, 12:56 pm
Five metric feet start every verse of Pope.
That wisdom follow, one can only hope.

writeon
October 3, 2020, 6:45 am
What I dislike in most older quotes
Are archaic words...that gets my goat!

writeon
October 4, 2020, 1:14 am
What I dislike in most older quotes
Are archaic words...that gets my goat!

kb83
April 1, 2022, 4:01 pm
Write on,, writeon.

rasbury
April 26, 2023, 12:45 pm
writeon, what is it you dislike about older quotes?

kb83
July 6, 2023, 1:21 pm
Five metric feet start every verse of Pope.
That wisdom follow, one can only hope.
His object bared, he closes with the verb,
Unwitting cryptogrammers to perturb.

[kb83]

I love this one, added a carriage return for easier reading.

"Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend."
— Alexander Pope


ernests
August 19, 2020, 4:04 am
Through twisted syntax and rhymes forc’d we grope
And thus a poet true is Alex Pope

[Eureka]

(You are brilliantly funny, kb83. For easier reading, I have put the comment before the quote.)

kb83
July 25, 2017, 10:04 am
There must be a name for this meter. It sounds like the 3rd, 4th, and 5th line of a limerick. How about: He got a degree from Loyola, But wished he could own a Corolla,

"If wishes and buts were clusters of nuts, we'd all have a bowl of granola." — Strangers with Candy

[LLapp]

"Men, having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had." — Demetrius Phalereus

kb83
December 18, 2023, 12:02 pm
An ancient Greek author Phalereus, Had wisdom for those who were serious, You should not aband- on a bird in the hand, To go for a vision delirious.

[LLapp]

A string of fun comments, ending in a kb83 limerick:


"What is man's chief enemy? Each man is his own." — Anacharsis Cloots

Allen
May 2, 2013, 11:33 am
Which Anacharsis Cloots was this?

puzzleme
August 6, 2014, 7:02 pm
An 18th century Prussian nobleman, according to Wiki.

tgreen517
January 16, 2015, 4:50 pm
I'd rather be my own chef enemy.

jimdgar
September 1, 2016, 9:35 am
That's why I never win; I'm too evenly matched.

kb83
March 13, 2020, 3:35 pm
Sometimes it is one's name.

puffybob
April 13, 2020, 12:03 am
I thought he was one of the kids from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

kb83
May 23, 2022, 1:21 pm
A young fellow named Anacharsis, Kept injuring his metatarsus, He found some new shoes, With shouts and "Woo- hoo"s (For him it was quite a catharsis.)