Puzzle Poems

Up and down,

Left and right

Almost done,

Never right.

One More Unfortunate.

She couldn't get the puzzle solved,

For lack of time-a minute,

And if you would avoid her fate,

Why, never you begin it.

_{Evening Gazette; Jervis Post, NY, March 11, 1880}

Push, Brothers, Push

Push, brothers, push with care,

Push the 14 to the 15 square;

The 6 to the 7, and you've got it there;

The 10 to the 9, or you don't care where,

But the 15 and the 14 they will stick there.

Push, brothers, push with care

Till your minds are all a jumble and you tear your hair.

_{World; Utica Morning Herald, March 2, 1880.}

The Gem Puzzle.

Full many a gem-the puzzle you have seen-

The dark, unfathomed caves of lying bare;

Full many a sorely puzzled wight, I ween,

Will lose his patience and will loudly swear.

But who, unto dumb foolishness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious puzzle e'er resigned

When he would lie, "I did it'other day,

But how, I cannot now quite bring to mind?"

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault

If never any one believe their tales:

You know full well they'd scarcely earn their salt

By puzzling o'er it till their reason fails.

No further seek their lying to upbraid.

Or ask them how they did the blasted thing;

The puzzle 't is that liars them has made,

The wicked swear-words to their lips does bring.

_{Boston Transcript, February 12, 1880.}

Humpty Dumpty

sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had

a great fall.

All the King's horses

and all the King's men

couldn't put

Humpty Dumpty

together again.

Ron's puzzle comes with lots of perks,

But I don't know yet how it works.

I am sure I'll understand,

When I hold it in my hand.

I carved the angels for his box,

They move around as it unlocks.

Robert Yarger

The Ark of the Covenant holds many secrets, 24 in all,

solving this puzzle you will have a ball.

2394, a clue to opening up the door,

move wisely and you need move no more.

When you solve the mystery of the 10,

You will be rewarded from a spirit within.

Ron Locke

Try how to drink

and not to spill

And prove the utmost

of thy skill

If one resorts to trial and error

Octet in F could be a terror

But four plus four in rhomboid tray

There ought to be a better way

To crack this nut more easily

Get in tune with symmetry

Stewart Coffin

A Rubric on Rubik Cubics(1)

Strange imports come from Hungary:

Count Dracula, and ZsaZsa G.,

Now Erno Rubik’s Magic Cube

For PhD or country rube.

This fiendish clever engineer

ntrapped the music of the sphere.

It’s sphere on sphere in all 3D—

A kinematic symphony!

Ta! Ra! Ra! Boom De Ay!

One thousand bucks a day.

That’s Rubik’s cubic pay.

He drives a Chevrolet. (2)

Forty-three quintillion plus (3)

Problems Rubik posed for us.

Numbers of this awesome kind

Boggle even Sagan’s mind. (4)

Out with sex and violence,

In with calm intelligence.

Kubrick’s "Clockwork Orange"—no!

Rubik’s Magic Cube—Jawohl!

Ta! Ra! Ra! Boom De Ay!

Cu-bies in disarray?

First twist them that-a-way,

Then turn them this-a-way.

Respect your cube and keep it clean.

Lube your cube with Vaseline.

Beware the dreaded cubist’s thumb,

The callused hand and fingers numb. (5)

No borrower nor lender be.

Rude folks might switch two tabs on thee,

The most unkindest switch of all,

Into insolubility. (6)

In-sol-u-bility.

The cruelest place to be. (7)

However you persist

Solutions don’t exist.

Cubemeisters follow Rubik’s camp—

There’s Bühler, Guy and Berlekamp;

John Conway leads a Cambridge pack

(And solves the cube behind his back!). (8)

All hail Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw,

A mayor with fast cubic draw.

Now Dave Singmaster wrote THE BOOK. (9)

One more we must not overlook—

Singmaster’s office-mate!

Programming potentate!

Alg’rithmic heavyweight!

Morwen B. Thistlethwaite!

Rubik’s groupies know their groups:

(That’s math, not rock, you nincompoops.)

Their squares and slices, tri-twist loops,

Plus mono-swaps and supergroups.

Now supergroups have smaller groups

Upon their backs to bite ‘em,

And smaller groups have smaller still,

Almost ad infinitum.

How many moves to solve?

How many sides revolve?

Fifty two for Thistlethwaite.

Even God needs ten and eight. (10)

The issue’s joined in steely grip:

Man’s mind against computer chip.

With theorems wrought by Conway’s eight

‘Gainst programs writ by Thistlethwait.

Can multibillion-neuron brains

Beat multimegabit machines?

The thrust of this theistic schism—

To ferret out God’s algorism!

CODA:

He (hooked on

Cubing)

With great

Enthusiasm:

Ta! Ra! Ra! Boom De Ay!

Men’s schemes gang aft agley.

Let’s cube our life away!

She: Long pause

(having been

here before):

—————OY VAY!

_{Claude E. Shannon, December 1, 1981.}