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 Ken Ken poetry? 
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Posted on: Mon Nov 14, 2011 9:08 am




Posts: 43
Location: Tacoma, WA, USA
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 4:03 am
Post Ken Ken poetry?
I’ve been focusing on something that others have probably noticed, too – a glaring hole in the otherwise thorough coverage the Calcudoku Forum gives to all things Ken Ken … the long list of topics that leaves no stone unturned, no cage unrattled, no symmetry unbalanced … except one. To this point there has not been in evidence a single example of a Ken Ken Poetry Slam.

Until now. I’ve taken the liberty of composing a stopgap measure to begin filling that void. I considered various possible titles such as Ode on a Grecian Ken, or Ken the Raven. Some of the titles that would jump from the page have already been taken, such as The Road Not TaKEN by Robert Frost and Unto a BroKEN Heart by Emily Dickinson.

I thought about a script for an entire play, which would of course be called All’s Well That Kens Well. But in the end (ewww!) I settled for a simple bit of doggerel that at least gets the blimp off the ground. I therefore offer (after considering and rejecting Of Mice and Min):


Of Mice and Ken

Mirror mirror on the wall,
Who’s the first to solve them all?
If I fill all the cages in,
Will I get points from Patrick Min?

I know that we will never see
A puzzle lovely as a tree …
Except the Tuesday pattern nine
As bright as which no others shine.

And then there comes the 7 Diff,
Subtract and give your score a lift.
The modulo I’d highly rate,
Unless you want remainder eight.

I want to try binary ken,
But watch me miss a cage and then
The operator – bitwise OR
Will kick my butt and wreck my score.

For now I’ll just ignore the timed,
Content to know they can be rhymed.
But ken nirvana I can see
As soon as I learn parity.

I try real hard the first time through,
But usually botch a pair or two.
So then I list the candidates,
But finally curse the ken ken fates.

I often think I’ll be a hero
Til they say, "Divide by zero."
I know that function can’t be done,
Though when I try sometimes I’ve won.

Fortunately there’s a way
To climb on up the 7 Day.
You solve the puzzles in a book,
And extra points you’re glad you took.

But exponentiation sucks,
For that we’re all just sitting ducks.
And if I don’t learn every seven
I’ll never get to bitwise heaven.

I know I spend way too much time,
Cause solving puzzles is sublime.
I work them late into the night,
My family wants to block the site.

I knew the puzzles had me hooked
When dinner just did not get cooked.
And whoa, I knew I’d hit the skids
When I forgot I had two kids.

But let me solve just one more eight,
And then I’ll transsubstantiate.
The puzzles I will meekly shelve,
Even though there’s one last twelve.

I’ll get my life back, go to work,
No more my duties will I shirk.
But hide the clock when it strikes three,*
Or watch the puzzles swallow me.

~

* (The new day’s puzzles time here in the western U.S.)


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Posted on: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:04 am




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: Ken Ken poetry?
rossiniman wrote:
I’ve been focusing on something that others have probably noticed, too – a glaring hole in the otherwise thorough coverage the Calcudoku Forum gives to all things Ken Ken … the long list of topics that leaves no stone unturned, no cage unrattled, no symmetry unbalanced … except one. To this point there has not been in evidence a single example of a Ken Ken Poetry Slam.

...
Of Mice and Ken

...
Except the Tuesday pattern nine
As bright as which no others shine.

And then there comes the 7 Diff,
Subtract and give your score a lift.
The modulo I’d highly rate,
Unless you want remainder eight.

I want to try binary ken,
But watch me miss a cage and then
The operator – bitwise OR
Will kick my butt and wreck my score.
...

* (The new day’s puzzles time here in the western U.S.)


Sure, mathematics and poetry are the same thing, remember that "the shorter distance between two points is the poetry" (not the geodesic).
It's a nice poem, "a tree is a tree is a tree..." (Gertrude Stein, right?, but "a calcudoku is a calcudoku is a calcudoku...". If I were in the western U.S. now, let's say in California, when looking to that special blue of the Pacific Ocean, while solving a puzzle, my mind would probably be flying to Maui...


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Posted on: Mon Nov 14, 2011 2:51 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Ken Ken poetry?
rossiniman wrote:
I’ve been focusing on something that others have probably noticed, too

Nice post :-)

Definitely not something I expected..

Patrick


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Posted on: Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:02 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Ken Ken poetry?
That's a neat poem, rossiniman. Ok, here's a limerick off the top of my head.

There once was a calcuholic named SneaklyFox
Who vowed to always solve every box -
Every cage, every cell,
Whether sick or well,
Would be filled by this puzzle-crazy SneaklyFox.


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Posted on: Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:15 pm




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: Ken Ken poetry?
rossiniman wrote:
... I’ve taken the liberty of composing ...



Hi, rossiniman, here is my small contribution to the Ken Ken Poetry:

I am writing a poem as rossiniman does
while waiting the neg numbers on monday to come
the witches were dancing kenken the whole night
don’t know if it’s sunny or it’s raining outside
don’t know if my nice garden is still alive.

Subtracting and dividing again and again
I am a calcuholic... clm is my name
my bottle empty of numbers is not far of mine
I like the nine and seven eleven and five
some of them are prime.

To seat them all right I am looking for a place
to gain a few seconds often I the keyboard break
I peacefully dream with puzzles all the time
the zeros and the mods OR the beautiful bitwise
I was told the other day: “You're loosing your mind”.


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Posted on: Mon Jul 18, 2016 6:33 pm




Posts: 279
Joined: Sun May 22, 2016 2:17 pm
Post Re: Ken Ken poetry?
clm wrote:
to gain a few seconds often I the keyboard break

Ditto [lol]
Also, here's mine [woot]
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=806


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