This October metal seat feels a hotbed
Made of coals

Eager and empty, questions arise
Existence, absurdity, human demise
Much more to this…here
Meets the eye.

Where’bout, dear prof, would you age my words?
But stuck in loftiness is useful like birds—

That face you gave before turning away?
Let it be be finale seemed
Be it a smile—not at me.

Minutae rules the day
More use—and, yes, I’m inclined to agree
For these are the points I give, but break free
To a pity, pretty tongue fit vague for poetry
--Though it pride, I know it, that speaks
I don’t like to hear it from my own mouth—
And never for a lifespan talk.

It’s that I see in missed detail
Where, myself, this class and level do fail
But never, never can I correct it
When focusing on such impossible ****.

Lushness falls short of rigorous yarn
Robes, academic, not rightly worn
For, in the professor, his or her eyes
Children like me are still ill-learned
And grandiose—though this, I know
I know it to be
That inner me:
The pride-shielding boast.