"undergrads" poems
Years ago: 93-94
NYC: Columbia
trying to finish that thesis script
in Butler library
sitting at a wooden table in a room full of wooden tables
covered in a vast ceiling
creativity squeezed from my brain
my boyfriend waiting for me
only a notebook, a row of payphones on the first floor
a line forms as undergrads wait for the inter-college phone
Today, 2012
Berkeley: Doe library
Looks like Butler but nicely painted
not ravaged by the weather and city
rows of wooden desks with lamps and outlets
I write on my laptop, a cell phone in my bag
The row of payphones on the first floor are just empty booths
I feel like, I could look up, and you would be standing there
You, my boyfriend, who became my husband
My best friend, a difficult one who I stood by against the odds
You would be standing there, or maybe sitting down reading a
large novel in French, and we would get up and leave together for a dinner on Broadway
I look up. The room is quiet and clear.
The air is fresh, no sounds of the inner city
You are not there
You live only in my mind
I wonder, how it was for you, years ago, in your year here at Berkeley
before you ran home, uncomfortable on this strange coast, this new world
I wish I could say to you
doe library looks like butler library
isn't that interesting
when I'm here, I feel like I'm there
But you, my past persecutor and abuser, would not listen
you new wife would be horrified.
It's such a simple thought
I don't want anything more
I'm afraid of you
Just wish I could connect, with that good part
at an innocent time when things were working
Jul 21, 2012
Jul 21, 2012 at 3:27 PM UTC
red pen in hand....
i critique people's thoughts
and dreams
six years at university,
to become a god....
who moulds minds
and delivers future prophecies, ready for unwrapping.
who creates bell curves,
of fail to high distinctions.
that the undergrads,
follow like dancing, pavlovian dogs...
the posts...have slipped
the leash and ...
leave thoughtful piles of...extruded work, in the academic yard.
six years at uni...as a dog
nine years at uni ...as a god.
it is amazing,
how the garnering
of parchments
and strange hats,
can transpose a person's world.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 10:00 AM UTC
Classes started up again today. Soon, we’ll be gloriously stressed, and clocked-up on whatever. Our hearts will swell to the pre-med symphony - a frantic opus, composed in the key of no sleep.
In seminars for rising pre-med seniors, (What's needed to get that med-school slot!), it’s obvious that 60% of the students who started out with us, on this track, are gone - left for other majors.
“I wasn’t happy, it was too much,” they said.
I feel a pang when I hear that undergrads we’ve shared a trench with have switched their major to basket weaving (political science), TikTok (computer science) or Phys-Ed.
I envy those deserters, I pity those deserters, I envy.. Wait, aren’t deserters supposed to be, well, you know.
Meanwhile, the rest of us, the stubborn few, cling to the dream. It’s a waking dream, for caffeinated zombies, obsessive-compulsive workaholics and maladjusted wonks who neglect personal needs, relationships and in some cases personal hygiene (not me, of course) in favor of a goal.
Maybe there’s something wrong with us?
Mar 25, 2024
Mar 25, 2024 at 10:31 AM UTC
Everything "adult" was new
And I knew what I wanted to do
All undergrads are really the same
We want to get naked with someone, go insane
For those of us on lockdown in our families
This was our first chance, to get some, finally
I remember the discovery of the feel of a fully naked man
His muscles were so hard, he was so hairy I didn't understand
How I hadn't noticed all these things before
What can you know through clothes? You need more.
And I went through all the dramas
And I can remember all their names I promise
I saw, I experienced the beginnings, middles and ends
And I had my ups and downs, it just depends
And now it's not that I'm bored with it all
It's just I think I know how much it hurts when you fall
Everything seems to matter so much more
I'm not just a kid, living mostly on my parent's money in a dorm.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 2:04 AM UTC
Born right, if this incongruous line is to be believed
**** from everything I've seen, why won't you let me be?
From the way they make it sound, I think i'll just pass up that pension
With this luck I'm not sure why I don't pass tests just guessing
If its multiple choice at least
(and it always is)
You can tell I'm more than fed up with the lack of agency
Developing around our common enemies
Festering, on the bloated *** of this so called society
Becoming a myiasis
And I'll never hear the end of it
From the kids to ugly to earn the extra credit
And from the back half of my grey matter
Turning numb from mindless chatter
But
Society will silently suffer
Burdened down with crowns churning from an endless gutter
Plastic trash meshing poorly, piling into a funeral pyre
Ever burning and choking out the ****** cooperate liars
No wonder gas mask production is up
As I'm getting ready to upchuck my lunch
Sorry for getting stuck, or regressive
But batter up, **** get ready for restoration
Claiming good as bad
With every passing fad
Distracting all my would be comrades
Zombify the undergrads
I don't have time for mindless upheaval
And replacement
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 3:03 AM UTC