801

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
But she doesn't have a lot to say;
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
But she changes from day to day;
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta have a belly full of wine;
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
Some day I'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah,
Some day I'm gonna make her mine.

(Lyrics - The Beatles)

Angelina is a Jolie fine girl
Me loves her so many ways;
Angelina has a yummy sassy tummy
To take my breath away;
Me needs to tell her that me loves her and say
I'd just love to get her belly close to mine;
Angelina is a Jolie fine chick,
But Brad Pitt get her heart, the creep, oh my;
Say Brad Pitt get her heart, oh my.

(Anthony Crafter)

802

A beauty from The Sound of Music

Do a deer a female deer
Re a drop of golden sun
Mi a name I call myself
Fa a long long way to run
So a needle pulling thread
La a note to follow so
Ti a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do

Sham from Lloyd's Bank

Owe, a debt, an unpaid debt
Pay us sum or go to jail
Fee, add sum for calling late
Far, how near you'd get to bail
Woe, alarm and much to dread
Ta, for selling me full loan
Free, to sink into the red
And once again I'll owe

803

[I've just come out with a book of poetry, where all of the poems are perfect anagrams of each other. For fun, I thought I'd present a set of the poems. I did all of the anagrams manually, without any computer program assistance. Every single one is totally different, though they are all exactly 525 letters long!

You can find out more about the project here (in a new window) ]

[Anagram 1:]

The Scrabblelology

Alfred Mosher Butts [formulas herd Betts] anagrammatician and architect from Poughkeepsie, United States, fashioned a game he called CRISS CROSS WORDS. His playful cryptographic investigation of our language and his original tile distribution system compelled generations, billions of games played. Inventors cherish the profitable titan, its intuitive straightforwardness. Poets energize, launch the waffling effect into lingual callisthenics of cut voices. Students listen to pacific hip-hop, flick oily joints, play in school as legitimate fun.

The unambitious watch with faith, inhale the social milieu.

[Anagram 2:]

The Anagram is:

Christian, it re-enacts the resurrection
Buddhist, it embodies the fall of worldliness
Islamic, dwells in constant, humble litany
Oulipian, by following Juno's code of brouhaha
Post-structuralist, it seizes gesture, takes up the semiograph
Canadian, puffing hash in teepees, it hugs itself
Page Fauna, a pun feud of foliage, interstitial page
Formalist, loving evolving architecture
Post-McCafferyist, a triste erotic to the full
Romantic, speaking in the wind of Goethe
Satirical, employs the ironic against levelling calm
Economic, it shifts nomadic cohesion, sells filthy badlands
Calligraphy: it is "the body which throbs"

[Anagram 3:]

Bonavista Cube Dog Creek Belleville Calgary Ste. Foy Toronto Ungava Sissibo Yellowknife Winnipeg McPhee Ripples Whitehorse Ucluelet Medicine Hat St. Paul Spirit Fundy Ottawa-Hull Fleet St. Gregor Baffin Fredericton Shining Tree Montreal Idol Catfish Ghita Edmonton Tulita St. Hyacinthe Lethbridge Flin Flon [Adanac] Flathead Dominion Holdfast Titian Pelee Mississauga Churchill Spyhill Regina Miramichi Faith Cupids Cypress Falls False Antigonish Hazlet Ruisseau Hinton Pacific Anticosti South Erie Moose Stand Off Bissett Summit Scugog Asbestos Tsiigehtchic Mun Portage la Prairie Charlottetown St. John's Victoria

804

[At the age of 15 Lord Byron became enamoured of a distant cousin, Mary Chaworth, who grew tired of "that lame boy" (he had a club foot). She became the symbol for him of idealized and unattainable love. It is probable, though not certain considering all the affairs he had in his short life, that he wrote this poem with her as his inspiration - which is reflected in the anagram by the use of an additional constraint, an acrostic on the phrase "MARY CHAWORTH MY LOVE".]

She walks in Beauty, like the night
      Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
      Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
      Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
      Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
      Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
      How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
      So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
      But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
      A heart whose love is innocent!

Mark! How she strides in sabled grace
      As, in the late empyrean glow,
Repose within that shadowed face
      Youth's luster that's untarnished; Oh
Caressed by that soft-hued embrace
      He made the stately sun forgo.

A more, a less, illumined scene
      Will make that silken palette fade
Of silver locks bathed with a sheen,
      Regaled with white skin half displayed;
Then on her visage shy, serene
      Her chaste conceits one sees portrayed.

My queen, with that sweet heart there dwells
      Youth's forthright innocence, and so
Love tender now enchanted wells;
      Oh noble golden wit that no
Vain homage pays, that girl's worth tells.
      Exalted loving pray bestow!

805

Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans' - Noel Coward

We must be kind, and with an open mind
We must endeavour to find a way
To let the Germans know that when the war is over
They are not the ones who'll have to pay.
We must be sweet, and tactful and discreet
And when they've suffered defeat
We mustn't let them feel upset
Or ever get the feeling that we're cross with them or hate them,
Our future policy must be to reinstate them.

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When our victory is ultimately won,
It was just those nasty Nazis who persuaded them to fight
And their Beethoven and Bach are really far worse than their bite
Let's be meek to them, and turn the other cheek to them
And try to bring out their latent sense of fun.
Let's give them full air parity
And treat the rats with charity,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

We must be just, and win their love and trust
And in addition we must be wise
And ask the conquered lands to join our hands to aid them.
That would be a wonderful surprise.
For many years they've been in floods of tears
Because the poor little dears
Have been so wronged and only longed
To cheat the world, deplete the world
And beat the world to blazes.
This is the moment when we ought to sing their praises.

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When we've definitely got them on the run
Let us treat them very kindly as we would a valued friend
We might send them out some bishops as a form of lease and lend,
Let's be sweet to them, and day by day repeat to them
That 'sterilization' simply isn't done.
Let's help the dirty swine again
To occupy the Rhine again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When the age of peace and plenty has begun.
We must send them steel and oil and coal and everything they need
For their peaceable intentions can be always guaranteed.
Let's employ with them a sort of 'strength through joy' with them,
They're better than us at honest manly fun.
Let's let them feel they're swell again,
And bomb us all to hell again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
For you can't deprive a gangster of his gun
Though they've been a little naughty,
To the Czechs and Poles and Dutch,
But I don't suppose those countries really minded very much.
Let's be free with them and share the BBC with them,
We mustn't prevent them basking in the sun.
Let's soften their defeat again,
And build their bloody fleet again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

'Don't Let Us Be Beastly To America'

Let's have a hi-five for the Yankees!
The US, they're Blighty's bestest friend!
We'll bet (damn sure!) when at war,
On them "doughboys", we'll depend!

They sound similar to the Canadians
(The difference we can't even tell).
From Atlanta to Tennessee, Butte, Duluth, "Noo Yawk",
Gee, dude, guess they're "swell"!

Despite the Indians' reservations (how?)
They truly are first-class.
(But they don't tend to know the difference,
Between a 'fanny' and an 'arse').

They gave us the Seven-Eleven, the Stetson,
Southwestern Bell, Beyonce Knowles,
The Battle of Little Bighorn,
The teepee, the wigwam, totem poles.

The mighty dollar, "E.T.", Las Vegas,
The Broadway Theater, the huge Empire State.
The Niagara Falls, The Hollywood Bowl,
Hubble, Motown, the Golden Gate.

Babe Ruth, the Indy Speedway, the Minuteman,
The Harley-Davidson Electraglide,
The Pentagon, The NFL, The Temptations:
(Bill Clinton, Monica inside).

Then the cattle up Wisconsin,
Down Florida's swamps, them damn "gators",
The Deep South, gumbo stew down "Nawlins",
The Wild West, Rayban Aviators.

Both Laura and Jenna on the bottle,
Eminem, The White House, prohibition,
Tammy Wynette, John Wayne Bobbitt,
The motel, the Challenger Shuttle mission.

The new California State Governor?
That, then, belief 'twould utterly beggar:
- That suntanned, testosteroned Terminator,
Arnold Schwarzenegger!

They're "The Land of the Free", the States,
But most neutral countries must hate their guts.
(That fast-food at McDonalds supersized
Their wobbly bottoms - sorry - "butts").

Meatloaf, and the other lardy fatsoes...
Hey, Tubby! Who ate all the pies?
J. Edgar Hoover, Elvis Presley,
Sinatra. ("Old Blue Eyes").

Then that detested dumdum "Dubya",
Cher, Madonna (nude), sweet Britney,
Then New Edition, Bobby Brown,
Husband of the demented Ms. Houston (Whitney).

When that unfortunate morning at Pearl Harbour,
The Nips destroyed the Pacific fleet,
The then President, Roosevelt, not to be outdone,
Would plan, undaunted, the revenge most sweet...

They went and utterly flattened Hiroshima,
Then at Vietnam, got a damned kicking.
They armed the Contras, then Iraq,
But thus, set the timebomb ticking.

May God bless the gas-guzzling United States,
The last of the world superpowers!
How goes that Freedom monument, then,
At Manhattan, the site of The Twin Towers?

Better be buddies to them "septics", dude!
The Stars and Stripes mustn't ever fall.
We'll salute them annually...every July the Fourth,
Hey buddy! Have a nice day, y'all!

806

[Below is Charles Lamb's poem about a baby's death, anagrammed into a poetic paraphrase of Chekhov's story 'Sleepy' - which adopts a different perspective.

**Warning** Nothing rude in the anagram, but it's of a disturbing nature. ]

On an Infant Dying as Soon as Born
Charles Lamb

I saw where in the shroud did lurk
A curious frame of Nature's work.
A flow'ret crushed in the bud,
A nameless piece of Babyhood,
Was in a cradle-coffin lying;
Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying;
So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb!
She did but ope an eye, and put
A clear beam forth, then strait up shut
For the long dark: ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.

Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?
Shall we say, that Nature blind
Check'd her hand, and changed her mind,
Just when she had exactly wrought
A finish'd pattern without fault?
Could she flag, or could she tire,
Or lack'd she the Promethean fire
(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd)
That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure
Life of health, and days mature:
Woman's self in miniature!
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to make Beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;
So in mercy left the stock,
And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widow'd; and the pain,
When Single State comes back again
To the lone man who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimed life?
The economy of Heaven is dark;
And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark,
Why Human Buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral,
That has his day; while shrivel'd crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of an hundred years.

Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss.
Rites, which custom does impose,
Silver bells and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips,
Which pale death did late eclipse;
Music framed for infants' glee,
Whistle never tuned for thee;
Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,
Loving hearts were they which gave them.
Let not one be missing; nurse,
See them laid upon the hearse
Of infant slain by doom perverse.
Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave;
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie,
A more harmless vanity?

Sleepy
(Based on a short story by Anton Chekhov)

A shoddy lantern lights the scene.
It's twenty after two o'clock
And nurse-maid Varka, aged thirteen,
Can hardly make the cradle rock.

Her eyelids droop, her fingers slip;
Sleep beckons, but she won't succumb.
Reminded of her master's whip,
She carries on her drowsy hum:

'Oh hush, my little baby, hush
So tender dreams come in a rush.'

The child is crying constantly.
As if bewitched, he won't calm down.
The hollers blend into a sea
In which poor Varka drifts and drowns...

She fights to rifle through the mist
And stumbles on a new display:
A crowd of nomads who persist
To wade along the muddy way.

And suddenly, the vagrants fall
Into the mud, two-inches deep.
"Oh - what's that rite for?", Varka calls.
"To sleep!", they answer her, "To sleep!"

A change of scene - she's in her hut.
Her father's twitching on the floor,
His fists are clenched, his eyes are shut.
A body no man can restore.

Her mother weeps, and by the door
The doctor frowns and seeks his horse.
A fright fills Varka's very core,
It hits her with a stunning force -

She's smacked and wakes. Her master fumes.
"Fie! Nodding off, you wretched thing?"
And in the window - daybreak looms,
To bode dull chores the morning brings:

To boil the tea and wipe the plates,
To fix the fence and mend a vest.
But no command can truly grate -
They get the mind off peaceful rest...

Her neck's quite stiff. Her temples throb.
She chuckles oft, though knows not why.
She calmly labors through each job
Until the day's last embers die.

The crib awaits at dinnertime.
The wee one airs his wail and moan
But now, the lines of Varka's rhyme
Are uttered in a blunted tone:

'Oh hush, my little baby, hush
So bitter dreams come in a rush.'

A flood of thoughts drives Varka mad:
Those drifters on the muddy way;
Her weeping mom and beaten dad;
A lifetime full of vile dismay.

What's keeping Varka tightly bound?
It nettles her; it taunts her so,
Until the simple answer's found.
It's him. The baby is the foe.

Ambition fuels her wearied pace:
One final chore to execute.
A pillow meets the infant's face,
Until the vicious foe is mute.

Then, as exhaustion overcomes,
She's more than willing to comply...
The room goes dim as Varka hums
Her slowly fading lullaby.

807

[Paul Erdos (who I had the pleasure of meeting once) liked to talk about The Book, an imaginary tome containing "perfect" proofs of various mathematical theorems.

One proof which would certainly be in The Book is also probably the oldest Book proof:
Euclid's argument that there are an infinite number of primes, contained in volume IX of the Elements.

Edna St. Vincent Millay's famous poem on Euclid is anagrammed below into some thoughts on Euclid's proof. In addition, embedded in the anagram is a numeric fraction which hints at this result by explicitly revealing a long sequence of prime numbers.

To see this, take the first word of each line in the anagram, compute its letter sum, and retain the final digit. So EUCLID is 54 (take the 4), ARRESTS is 100 (which gives 0), and so on. This produces the sequence 4 0 9 9 2 0 0 0 4 1 for the first stanza and 9 9 9 7 0 0 0 2 9 9 9 9 for the second. Squish each sequence together, giving the numbers 4099200041 and 999700029999.

Divide the first stanza's number by the second (4099200041/999700029999) and compute the value of this fraction, whose infinite decimal expansion begins

.00410043004700530061007100830097011301310
15101730197022302510281031303470383...

Divide this into groups of 4:

0041 0043 0047 0053 0061 0071 0083 0097 0113 0131 0151 0173 0197 0223 0251 0281 0313 0347 0383

and remove leading zeros in each group:

41 43 47 53 61 71 83 97 113 131 151 173 197 223 251 281 313 347 383

Every one of these integers is a prime number (and the sequence continues with more primes: 421, 461, 503, 547, 593, etc).]

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

=

Euclid gazed at Virtue vague, now
  arrests all who babble of ideals
  and honor; they lie prostrate
 on a ledge in humble abandon.
 Unlike any before, he drew a
  line to infinity, a path ahead in the
  void: a euphonous essay on the
  unattainable. (One by one we
 subtract them, when old or in their
 prime.)

 See here the flash of a holy
  candle, lead a song to enumeration:
 Days of endless sights
  by Athens' heights,
  speeches also to
  honor him. Euclid alone
 bore fruit so true:
 Go then on the chosen path,
 View the rank and file of
  mortal history: thoughts
 nestled here at the Golden Key, by
 Rationals Way.