These two poems were distributed during the last week of Mr. L.'s
third period AP Calculus class.  Don't ask me why.



Math Romance

They integrated from the very point of origin.  Her curves were
continuous, and even though he was odd, he was a real number.
The day their lines first intersected, they became an ordered pair.
From then on it was a continuous function.  They were both in their prime,
so in next to no time they were horizontal and parallel.  She was awed by
the magnitude of his perpendicular line, and he was amazed by her conical
projections.  "Bisect my angle!" she postulated each time she reached her
local maximum.  He taught her the chain rule as she implicitly defined the
amplitude of his simple harmonic motion.  They underwent multiple rotations
of their axes, until at last they reached the vertex, the critical point,
their finite limit.  After that they slept like logs.

Later she found him taking a right-handed limit, that was a
problem, it was improper form.  He meanwhile had realized that she was
irrational, not to mention square.  They diverged.



Math Prayer

O Lord, hear my anxious plea
Calculus is killing me
I know not of 'dx' or 'dy'
And probably won't until the day I die.
Please, Lord, help me in this hour
As I take my case to the highest power.
I care not for fame or loot
Just help me find one square root.
And Lord, please let me see
One passing mark in organic chemistry.
Oh such a thing I constantly dread
I'd just as soon join the Marines instead.
Lord, please give me a sign
That you've been listening all the time.
Please lead me out of this constant coma
And give me a shot at my diploma.



Math prayer from Calculus Hater's Web Page
http://www.psyber.com/~jacob/math/calculus.html