Near East M20

"Near East M20"

In a "chair"
the Droning, Droning
Monotone I know
from teachers here, and
before,
Sapping away any will
with the darkness
like a restaurant.
It's not ambiance,
It's just dim.
The students that file in late
like I did on the first day
have it better than I.
They have only
74 minutes of classtime.
Not 75.


I guess we're just going to have poetry posts for the first few posts here, but I can't fight their ease of posting. These next few are all from Near East M20, the class I took my final quarter at UCLA. The professor's name was Robert Englund, and that class could have its own Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Professor Englund was the classic absent-minded professor, and he could put you to sleep if you weren't careful. Thinking back now, we did slowly lose students over the course of the quarter in lecture. I thought at the time students realized the class was boring and stopped coming to lecture; perhaps something more sinister was going on, and Freddy was killing us all in our sleep. Since I answered one question one time, I guess I was at the back of the killing queue. One shouted answer meant an infinite class participation increase. I fell asleep yes, but also respected Englund for his vast stores of academic knowledge that meant he could tangentially lecture for ten minutes and still not know how to work a computer properly. Freddy Krueger probably has a quip for that. I can imagine a student trying to access the website and it glitching. Suddenly, Freddy pops out of the screen, clawing open the boy's chest and pulling him into the HTML. When the boy is dead and in the computer, Freddy says, "What's the matter? Gone to code?" and laughs at the double meaning.

None of these poems are gruesome, though. The first does make the connection, but not seriously.

"Robert Englund"

Freddy Krueger,
With his cracking jokes,
My professor,
With his cracked tokens.
Street smart vs. book smart,
A wiseass and a bore.
Though they might both
Put me to sleep
Wearing the same sweater.


The absolute best is about how I looked at the Periodic Table of Elements, and well, it gets weird.

"Oh Wait That Says IUPAC, NVM"

In the darkness,
at the top,
It says "TUPAC."

Remaining a mystery,
His troubled troubling death,
untimely- and yet they say
He predicted so much
in his unreleased songs.
I say they say, I do not know.
Perhaps this is why
He Graces the table
that predicted the qualities
of its unknown Contents
in the Columns and Rows
already discovered.
The speculation on Tupac Shakur
is Periodic, coming and going
except for those constant conspirators,
remaining in their agitated states
as the Nobles remain unphased,
Filled to the brim with
Valence electrons.

If He(lium) could Choose
how to respell his name,
once more, would he
Choose HePac or 2Pac
or does he not care about
the proton count?

Yellow solids,
Green liquids,
Pink gases,
and Metalloids in Grey font.
Where is all the Brown,
as all is presented
on a White background.
Each letter is in Black font,
except those Metalloids.
But the elements are placed
in blocks, I see D-Block,
just like prison cells.
F-Block, the radioactive Man-made elements,
are placed off on their own,
in a Solitary Confinement,
Their Danger too much for Nature.


Of the five remaining from that's day poetry session, involving only about ten minutes of actual notes, I'm only going to include two. They're the silliest and shortest, but the other three are in poor taste and poorly composed at the same time.

"Mole Escape"

I am going to play
Mole Escape.

"Super Mole Escape"

I didn't state the name right,
It's properly "Super"
With Megas and Ultras
To speed my Mole
On his way.
I say "his" because
I'm not playing with Matilda.
I send her on her way.