Poems

Happy Dozens Day!

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We are in a pivotal time for humankind – the era of paranoid obsession over the numbers that appear on our calendar.

Oh, wait a minute. That’s every era.

So far, the way the numbers roll up in the date line on your checks has had nothing to do with the fate of the planet or the civilization, but we can’t help but notice when the lineup appears portentous. In nine days the frenzy will peak with the arrival of the utterly meaningless 12-21-12.

I find today more interesting anyway – more orderly and beautiful somehow.

The challenge for 12-12-12 is to write a twelve line poem with twelve syllables in each line. And you get 12 bonus points if it rhymes!

There’s nothing to keep you from telling your cousins.
The month, year and day for today are all dozens.
But why would you make it a point to be geeky?
They already think that you’re thoroughly freaky.

These digits don’t indicate anything scary.
You shouldn’t be frightened, perplexed or be wary.
Each day is a day that arrives unencumbered.
It’s people that name them and make them all numbered.

While the ones and the twos might seem key to our plot
What our calendar calls today signifies squat.
When setting the time of our big closing rally
The mind of the cosmos won’t look to our tally.

Not feeling poetical? Tell us how (or if) you’ll observe Dozens Day!

89 thoughts on “Happy Dozens Day!”

  2. 12 lines, 12 syllables each…. not sure I can get that inspired today, but we’ll see. Certainly not this early.

    I will be spending 12/12/12 trying to get the 12 things on my to-do list done. Next 48 hours is insane. All self-imposed insanity, but insanity nonetheless!

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  3. I’ll not fuss too much about the date or the numbers, but spend some time reflecting on Ravi Shankar who has just left us at age 92. I find this music mesmerizing.

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    2. Thanks for the video and letting us know that Ravi Shankar passed away, PJ. Do you know that there is a very outstanding musician from India living in our area who plays the Veena which is very similar to the sitar. Her name is Nirmala Rajasekar. I went to one of her performance and it was wonderful. I assume she is still living here. If you like Ravi Shankar, I’m sure you would like Nirmala. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have any shows scheduled at this time. I’m hoping she will do more live performances in our area.

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    3. I heard about this as soon as I got on Facebook this morning. Some of my friends can remember the revolutionary impact of Ravi Shankar’s music back in the day. For me as a child in the 70s, Indian music was kind of in the atmosphere, at least until disco ate the culture (anyone else remember the Number Guru from Sesame Street? Trippy!) Shankar was one of a small group of brave people who worked hard to demonstrate to white folks the richness and sophistication of Indian culture. My stomach (wonderful cusine), ears (beautiful music), eyes (gorgeous dance and art), spine (yoga) and spirit (the principle of ahimsa) have much to thank him for.

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  4. Good morning. I might give the 12 12 12 poem a try later today. This is my day to go grocery shopping. I will probably buy a dozen eggs. Perhaps I should buy them at 12 noon. That would make two twelves. I could buy 12 eggs at 12 minutes after 12.

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  5. dozens day inspires to rhyme words in groups of twelve
    with thoughts based on numners and even persuation
    in the realm of numerocity i will delve
    and jump on the twelve train right here at trail station

    i love magic days that can spin around nimbers
    i got married on one one of two thousand one
    the wedding began at one o one eastern time
    it was twenty degrees in the florida sun

    two two two three three three four four four happened quick
    i hardly took notice as they spun on by me
    five five five six six six did the calendar trick
    seven should be lucky luck should be one with me

    eight nine and ten were a blip on the screen weren’t they
    eleven eleven eleven felt inspired
    started a business to squeeze luck out from that day
    year later its launching but i’m not yet retired

    next time it rolls round ill pay better attention
    all the numbers days this century are fully spent
    not making better use i deserve detention
    where the hell have these first twelve years done gone and went

    thanks dale for pointing out dozens day to us here
    i would hate to miss it and look back with remorse
    you cant go back on a day like this that is clear
    unless you can all wait til twenty one twelve of course

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  8. A dozen first cousins created a coven
    And then ate twelve pink cupcakes fresh from the oven
    At noon and twelve minutes they all played a spinet
    Forgetting time signatures, oh dear oh dimmit

    (Perhaps if I take a twelve minute nap at 12:12 today I might be more divinely inspired…)

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  9. On my shopping trip today I probably should buy a dozen cup cakes, a dozen candles to put on the cup cakes, and a dozen roses to celebrate 12-12-12.

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  12. As you all well know, I have narey a lick of poetry in me.
    I am also up to my ears in wooly Christmas goodness (work, not pleasure,but may all my work be this enjoyable), soother than accomplishing a dozen necessary tasks, I don’t see me doing much to mark the day.

    I will, however, fantasize that if I had the time, I think I would mark the day surfing the web to find a dozen wacky versions of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Bob and Doug’s Great White North version and the Alan Sherman version with the Japanese Transistor Radio we have on disk. I also have a tickling memory in the back of the brain (where something more useful should definitely be stored) of a tropical version featuring A Myna Bird in My Papaya Tree.

    I will happily accept any Baboonish contributions to assembling this dozen.

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      1. I am where I can’t listen to this , but it is great fun to watch (and thanks for the memories of my past career-I know a bunch of people who probably wish they had thought of this, but that was pre-YouTube)

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        1. This is such a romp. Over the years I have watched it I don’t know how many times. Brings a smile to my lips to think of all the fun they had doing this.

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  13. The Classical music side played a few minutes of Spike Jones Nutcracker this morning…

    No, I don’t know what that comment has to do with anything.

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  14. Tomorrow happens to be the 12th and final “Iso Day” of the year, an invention of a math major friend of mine at the U of Chi, which required a trip to Jimmy’s Tavern to celebrate. Would take too long to explain. It’s a quirky math major thing. Too bad it isn’t today, but today is the 347th day of the year, being a leap year. The 12th Iso Day is the 248th day of the year.

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    2. because I had to know, I tried to Google up Iso Day and am still a bit confused. I’m going to let this one go, I lack the mental fortitude today.

      I am, however, reassured to know that the new standards are Y9K compliant, that’s a load off my mind.

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      2. Geek Warning: Explanation of Iso Days
        I had a friend Phil who was a numbers whiz in a hundred ways. He could do the four basic operations in his head instantly. (There are a series of math shortcuts you can learn, which he had.) You would tell him a number of up to 7 digits and he would quickly tell you if it was prime or factor it. He was no geek. As is often true, his high math ability came with musical ability. He always knew how many days of they year had elapsed and how many were left. He had an amazing savant gift for numbers in many ways, most beyond my ken.
        He loved primes. Mathematicians note that primes come in a pattern, sort of, or do they, maybe. After 100 (the early numbers are the factoring numbers to Phil so he did not count them as real primes.) the primes every so often have pairs as in the following: 101 103, 107 109, 137 139, 149 151, 179 181 191 193 197 199, 227 229, 239 241 281 283 311 313, 347 349. In a grid of primes this is clearer. So there is almost a pattern to this repetition in various ways. Anyway the numbers between the pairs are his Iso Days. All of this was an excuse to go to Jimmy’s Tavern. There are really 17 Iso Days in a year, but if you start at 100, his rule, you get 12, a fact which he played with, too. On days 102, 108, 138, 150. 180 etc. he would announce Iso Day. In summer break he would send you a letter telling you it was Iso Day.
        If I weren’t so tired, I would not have brought this up. Sorry.
        Also, Jimmy’s Tavern is very famous has appeared in many things I have read, such as a Richard Russo story, A Heinlein novel and an Asimov story. Somewhere there is a poem about it.

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  15. The birds out my window are perching and chirping
    This day they just know that it’s too cold for slurping
    They don’t understand that the big hairy human
    Is racing around like a furnace that’s fumin’

    We’re trying to do ev’rything by our flapping –
    The shopping, the cards, and the baking, the wrapping
    We run ’round, a chicken who’s minus its one head
    To get all accomplished, and still arrive undead

    At Monday, the twenty-fourth day of December
    With all the gifts under the tree. And remember
    There’s just twelve more days till that sweet Christmas Eve night
    When we drive around town just to look at the glow-light.

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  16. Wow. After reading these posts, I know better than to even attempt to enter into the dialogue! In other words, I know when I’m “out-intellectualized”. The only addition I can make (I too often cave into being literal) is that today is my ex-husband’s 70th. birthday: 12/12/12. My three kids with him have flown into Phoenix to surprise him for the occasion.

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        1. If that’s the case, obviously that’s not the one her children are surprising on his 70th birthday, or they are a really strange bunch. Sheesh, some people.

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  17. Like Jim, it was my day to go grocery shopping today. I was going to try to buy a dozen eggs at 12:12, but by the time I got to the co-op, it was around 12:30 so I missed my big chance to do something significant on dozens day. (And I am not even going to attempt poetry.) I think I might have been able to do it if driving conditions had been better – I made a trip to Trader Joe’s first and I think I had to stop at about 12 dozen red lights on the way there and back.

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    1. I should have gone shopping, but decided to do 12 chores I’ve been putting off instead. Got 8 done so far. We’ll see how it goes. I may have to do some creative choring.

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        2. Congratulations, PJ! You did it! One dozen comments on the Trail on 12/12/12 (don’t reply to this or you’ll have 13 comments which will ruin it).

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  19. syllable counting is dozen days trail mission
    weve had a couple but its not our favorite
    if you leave out the rhyme and just focus on words
    your free till the end of the couplet to write stuff

    those rhyming words bind your they sneak up behind you
    you appear very cleaver when you make them work
    but it can be so hard it drains all the pleasure
    and leaves us all thinking that our dale may be a jerk

    and then he wants twelve lines its got to be twelve lines
    on dozen day we on the trail rhyme with fingers
    we forgive alpha our beacon our guiding llight
    the baboon cliff now its the challange that lingers

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        2. I think I have mentioned before that the son of my grandfather’s cousin married Lawrence Welk’s daughter, Shirley.

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  22. On this special day, the twelfth day of the twelfth month
    Life at our house was not feeling any magic –
    Teenager was up late, ran out of kitten food,
    Trying hard not to feel cursed — that’s too dramatic.

    Spilled milk, split garbage bag, really late for car pool –
    Left lunch in fridge and library book on table.
    Learned about needed dance outfit for tomorrow
    At ten. Starting to feel distinctly unstable.

    Twelve e-mails awaited, twelve folks in my meeting,
    Twelve errands over lunch, twelve minutes overtime.
    Twelve rotations of gymnastics in St. Paul.
    At last twelve lines of poetry — even some rhyme!

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