Spring semester has started.
We’re all immersed in the ritual of change
and totally committed to that descent into madness
to the relentless drabness, the flatness, the blandness
for the hours, days and weeks of study
and a bone-deep fatigue that’s actually funny

We’ll live at the edge of intensity
near the the corner of drudging
and gather around the printer
at the media center
like a secular rite of passage

I think I need a daily grind—to keep my mind busy.
What’s wrong with me, that when I’m on vacation, I miss it?
What if work/study is one of my bone-marrow-deep love languages?
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Songs for this:
Happy Dreamer by Laid Back
Easier Said Than Done by Thee Sacred Souls
(You're Better) Than Ever by illuminati hotties

Poems don’t have to rhyme, free verse it isn’t a crime
I can write what I please—don’t call the police.
Must I play the game, both rhyme and spill intimate things?
Can I develop leitmotifs without rhyming riffs?
I could claim I’m writing prose - yeah, be one of those.
No one can rhyme all the time.
I can refuse—I’m no Dr F-ing Seuss,
**** it! ← See? THAT didn’t rhyme.
(sirens in the distance)
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Fun songs for this:
Ain't It Fun by Paramore
It's All Your Fault (with Katie Shore) by Asleep At The Wheel

On Monday, Arthur, wooden sword in hand,
  defeats the roses in their crimson bed.
On Tuesday, Arthur makes his bravest stand,
  against the garden pond, with doughty Fred.
On Wednesday, Arthur leads his fearless band
  through snow; the flashing red - a racing sled.
On Thursday, Arthur – secret agent, creeps
    around the lair. On Friday, done, he sleeps.

On weekends, Arthur’s with his dad all day;
    who takes his son to captain England’s team:
when dazzling Arthur makes the winning play
    they celebrate with strawberries and cream.
On Sunday Arthur goes to church to pray
    then polishes his sword to make it gleam.
On Sunday night the world is right and so
    this King prepares to fight his Monday foe.

If freshman year was aspirational
and sophomore year was unhinged
junior year was put up or shut up
and senior year is a dash to the finish line

This year’s on fast forward—and it’s for keeps
every to-do list has value-laden questions
things seem sharp edged, single use and intense
it’s all about trajectories and ‘landing spots”

Let’s wax poetic..

Produce now, or spend fury on thyself—all else is untenable
we’re past youth and ignorance—your honour’s at stake

Suitors call you by name, like well-acquainted friends
they took your measure—you’re beyond the mark of others
they ****** with money—the future brings liberty and noble deeds.

So don the the garland and prove thyself—take the field
join the battle—now’s the reward—aidless, perpetual toil
with every motion be right, it’s thy shunless destiny.
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A song for this:
A Man of Great Promise by The Style Council
Headstart For Happiness by The Style Council

It’s fun to collect money for passing
Go but ahead hotels are massing.  
Competitors bought
The railroads.  You’re caught!
You can’t outrun landlords by racing.

Yay! Some cold at last, and even a dusting of snow.
We moved back into the dorm—braving knife-like breezes—yesterday.
It was bracing and heroic - do I want it to warm up?
That’s a hard no.

let’s wax poetic..

Think not of winter as bleak
wrap your steely bones warmly, wear a cap
—for gelid wintertide can bind us together.

Midwinter is the time o' the year to be warm hearted,
to find a companion, a creature fair, a lass (or a manly man)
and suggest a more temperate snuggle— it can do no harm to try.

Think not of winter as bleak
make sweet use of flattery, and face cold’s embrace
likewise, cheek to cheek, with a warming and open heart.
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Snowbird by Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem
We'll Sing In the Sunshine by Thornbirds

Have you ever pretended a guy was interesting?
Have you slow danced and let him sniff you up close?
It gives you somewhere to go, if you decide to.

Or given a little kiss—nothing slutty in that.
You know, a 'person' isn’t a good kisser - it takes two.
I’m not talking about me, of course.

There’s a two-way interrogation going on
complete with our own internal narratives
—we reenact it’s rituals in the strangest places

Like quiet libraries or the lerch and spin of a dance club
we process by analogy and approximation and it works
until it doesn’t, like cold water poured into a glass.

Then we settle back into the dull rhythms of study
I’m not talking about me, of course.
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Songs for this:
This Girl's In Love (Live At HMH) by Trijntje Oosterhuis
The Men of Your Dreams by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince

I’m left bare by a grizzly burden of a bear upon my thoughts – heavy,
and hibernating; as the love of my life dashes across the winding road
of my mind – my eyes are headlights illuminating to my dear. My
love for her still endures, even when she poses her ***** questions,
“Would you still love me if I were a worm crawling through the
dirt?” Of course, my heart answers yes, for I often ponder how she so
effortlessly wiggled her way into my life.

“Does this outfit make me look fat?” she asks, and I reply with a
cheerful “no,” yet the the elephant in the room, is always remembering that fateful night when I jokingly answered yes, and I became
irrelevant over her bedside.

Yet, I am the dog, when I **** her off – but it’s okay, for I know I’ll
simply mark my territory in that doghouse. Still, like a devoted pup,
my tail wags with joy at the sound of her voice. And if my attempts to
win her back after a quarrel make her sweet on me again – then I
suppose I’m a bee, and you, my darling, I call Honey.

The reality is, we’ve always recognized the humour in my antics –
and our love is animal, untamed and primal, yet beautifully
restrained by the fervour of our unwavering devotion to one another.

The sky is a cloudless crystal blue
with a breeze to chap your lips
I’m grateful for it, it’s heaven-sent
the dawn was a celestially stamped, angry red
sailors take warning

It’s going to get feisty cold,
I’m told
about the time we go back to school.
A polar-bear vortex with all its features
will spread its icy paws

What jumps out at me first
is how it could be worse.
if unapologetic nature
pounced sans disclaimers
with a cold worth semi-Shakespearean verse

What follows, star-crossed
is a week storm-tossed
a winter holocaust
with heaven-kissed frost
that only madness would call a judgement

We’re steered from harm
by precision alarms
stay warm
sweet friends
wrap up, stay in
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Songs for this:
Come In from the Cold by Marc Broussard
World's A Changing by The Bingtones