(a silly series of Senryus)

It’s time to cram for
final exams, again, so
here we go, mug up.

My mind, coffee dark,
drifts in academic dreams,
—think roiling oceans.

A ‘mandatory’
society meeting? You’re
not the boss of me.

I’ll shun or eschew,
if I want too, sidestepping,
like a tap dancer.

I'm not lazy - I'm
high tech and in energy
saving mode right now.

It’s a pointed and
conscious decision—I’ll do
me and you do you.
.
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Songs for this:
Simply Couldn't Care by Tracey Thorn
Each and Every One by Everything But the Girl
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Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_14.mp3

My roommates and I
always have something to say.
We talk incessantly, like chirping birds.

We’re all reading the same large print here, and It suggests that college is almost over.
We’re bleeding time and there are dreams in need of scheming.
It’s time to stack our chips with transactional relationships and hoard the things that matter most.

I have to admire the sheer attitude and bravado of these girls—their defiant strides,
as they face the invisible indignities and constant obstacles of job hunting.
(Where they’re required to behave while they’re observed and evaluated).

They have their resumes and they’re complaisantly ready to flex their appealing gregariousness.
All of the major playas are passing through—from established giants like (Amgen, Bayer and Genentech)
to biotech startups and research Institutes—to cull through the herd of Yale biomedical graduates.

I don’t get to play (interview) this time and it’s rough just watching the signs and plays from the sidelines.
I can’t help the feeling that I’m underperforming—even though my ‘Master of Public Health (MPH)’ program starts 10 days after we graduate. ‘Baby, I was born to run’— to steal a line from Bruce Springsteen.

Despite our separate paths—we’re like cats getting ready to jump in all directions—a bouillabaisse of intoxicating and terrifying excitement for the future is brewing, and we still have the constrictions of our current curriculum to deal with—like a snake, it still wraps around every aspect of our lives.
.
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Songs for this:
born to run by Bruce Springstein
Time by Tom Waits
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_03.mp3

(a piece from high school (I’ve been reorganizing))

I am simply at my worst these days.
Wild and unpredictable emotions rush on me - it's a place where the layer of control and composure are very thin.

This school year has been an endless working, always desperate, collection of days.

Each passing week seemed to unmask some flaw in me.. Like peeling a rotten onion.

Emotionally, spiritually, I’m drubbed—I droop like a hanged man.

It's not the work—I survive (piano) competitions and academic battles as if by some brand of magic..

No, it's more.
I have lost my goal. Like biblical engineers raising the tower of Babel on the plain of Sennaar, I am struck by a lack of focus. My direction, my original plans, seem shallow—I stand purposefully gelded.

It's worse because I'm somehow so much less who I want to be.

Like an asymptotic curve I constantly miss my ideal. I am hunted, internally, by my own inner voice, that ruthless, pittyless, seeker of perfection.. it lurks like the prowling wolf, stalk bent walk.. sifting my every thought, my every action for flaws.. until like the wing weary hunted pray I could almost welcome the killers warmth for sweet silence

In a mood somewhere between cowardly and courageous I finally approached my mom..

In a speech from the scaffold, I told her of my black, tight, treacherous spiral.. of my doubts about everything.

I expected the worst.. a disappointment, in less than cryptic, ciphered messages, a slow sharpening of her claws on me for endless shortcomings..

Instead, I got miracles..
as if rigid constellations had shifted.. an atmosphere of freedom earned.. and at least for that moment, the mom who used to sing me awake in the mornings as a girl.. and a delicious summer of rest.
.
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A song for this:
Everyday Is A Winding Road by Sheryl Crow
Cruel To Be Kind by Letters to Cleo
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_02.mp3

Our land of stars and stripes, now glows,
with screens that flicker in hallowed halls.
Entranced humans shuffle, with eyes fixed below,
on small gadgets that have us enthralled.

Should the Statue of Liberty, our symbolic girl,
be holding a smartphone up to the world?
While tweets fly like eagles and hashtags swirl,
foreign disinformation trends as fast as it’s purled.

In lunch halls, real conversations take rest,
as influence is sought—in hoity-toity, binary quest.
Friends are backdrops—originality in short supply
as likes and shares make our dopamine fly.

America’s zombies, though ******* drained,
shuffle endlessly on, with Wi-Fi stimulated brains.
Once the land of the free, we’re now the land of tech
with minds wrecked by truths unchecked.

As we rock and sway—the new robot way—
will our old, analog-republic simply fade away?
.
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Songs for this:
Airhead by Thomas Dolby
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_01.mp3

Already back in class.
Wow, the Holidays went fast.

Wasn’t Black Friday great?
‘Bargains,’ make my heart race
and the Internet’s my kind of place.
I can dead-on shop this time of year,
shamelessly, without the fear
that someone will be judging me.
I make some ‘passing effort’ to be frugal,
that’s what ‘black Friday’ sales are for—and google.
I bought my suitemates those techie gifts, to guarantee,
that they’ll meet with their approval.
.
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A Christmas playlist for this:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_21.mp3

I saw a turkey circling, high above Manhattan
his bronze and copper feathers ripped in the sun,
and it looked like it was having an awful lot of fun.

He looked proud, in those clouds—majestic and delicious,
I could picture him sprawled out, on our Thanksgiving dishes.
Then I thought, chastisingly, “Wow, in a way, that’s kind of vicious.”

I opened the glass doors—we were sitting on the sky-high terrace.
I thought I’d better check—so I wouldn’t later be embarrassed.
I called Karen (Lisa’s Mom), “You already got a turkey to prepare us?”

She was hand making apple and cherry pies, lining crust in the pans
“You bet!” She called, “One's dressed-up—and a honey-baked ham!”  
Closing the door, I yelled, through cupped hands, “Fly on Turkey—DO NOT LAND!”
.
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Songs for this:
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Shrift remix by Andy Williams and Shrift
One Day More by Les Misérables Original London Cast Ensemble

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I made this year's Christmas playlist!
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_34.mp3

There’re so many sad love poems around here.
If you guys need help negotiating love’s slippery *****,
let me offer you, your own, romantic horoscope!:

Don’t court romantic disaster
don’t mistake a lightbulb for the moon
Titanic wasn't a rom com

and a sad update:
Grand romantic gestures don’t happen anymore,
you're lucky to get a vibration in our pocket with a "sorry" text

I know what you're thinking though, “We didn’t know the moon was useless until we landed on it,” but once you’ve ‘landed’ on a guy (or girl), once or twice, it’s too late—you’re likely ‘in it.’

Big picture-wise, I think we all have Shakespeare to thank for unrealistic, romantic storylines. Romeo & Juliet are the perfect example—they meet, fall in love and marry the very next day.

In Shakespeare’s defense though, love in his world-building was always messy and imperfect, and there were few "happily ever after" narratives. (The exception being Beatrice and Benedick, in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’).

In a side note, my weekly horoscope (Libra) for the Thanksgiving holiday reads:
“You’ve become so self-centered, It’s all about you. What about your family? Before you go emo and angry, change your perspective—own it—strive to improve relationships.”
Sarsh (so harsh), in this writer’s opinion.
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(Songs for this):
Love Is In Town by Brenda Boykin
Do You Even Know? by Rae Morris