Too dead, too alive
To get up, or sleep
Or retrieve my pen,
I lie half-conscious
On my narrow bed;

A snippet of Swift,
A pinch of Pope,
A bit of Baudelaire
Tease my senses,
Distort my view;
The day-old scent
Of love dispensed
Torments my body--
Defeats my will;

Yes, now and then
An idea takes hold,
Savagely burrows
Down into my skin;

Lure of metaphor
And metamphetamine--
In symbiotic union,
Entomb the spirit
Enslave the mind;
Knowledge hardened
To a yellow glob
Of primordial glue;

A stack of books,
A load of pabulum,
A grain of truth,
The line obscure;
Red ravaged eyes,
Crave for rest,
A world too large
To sanely swallow,
To safely ingest,
Before the term
Soon terminates,
And all for what?

To falsely justify
The student loan;

This grey lump of jelly
Inside its bony crock,
Can barely
Bear
Much more;

You remind yourself
For the hundredth time,
Just why you've come
To this hallowed hall--
Yes, a degree,
That's it,
That's all,
A degree, fair prince,
To plaster on the wall.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Home