Grook

A grook ("gruk" in Danish) is a form of short aphoristic poem. It was invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein (he wrote over 7,000 of them, published in 20 volumes). Some say that the name is short for "GRin & sUK" ("cry and moan" in Danish), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin air. His gruks first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell. The poems were meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. The grook are characterized by irony, paradox, brevity, precise use of language, sophisticated rhythms and rhymes and often satiric nature.
  EDIAMATIC  Know it all cold?  Or lank with acedia?  Share and be bold;  Come build Wikipedia.  — Anon. 
  ASSY-METRY  There's nothing that goads  Like no-passing roads  With a slowpoke in front  And a hot rod in back —  'Cause you'd never speed  It's just that you need  To get past that grunt   And away from that devil on crack.  — Anon. 
  DRIVE ON  Schadenfreude Grook  Flare spoor, white powdery burns:  Like funerals without the urns.  Mark the passages of lives before eyes  And the uttering of inhuman cries.  Still we're always glad to see'um,  Cause it means we didn't be'em.  — Anon. 
  THE ROAD TO WISDOM?  Well, it's plain  and simple to express.  Err and err and err again,  but less and less and less.  — Piet Hein. 

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