Filler Piece: Poetry
It is approaching the Iron Blogger deadline, sort of. And more importantly I want to go to sleep soon in (yet another) attempt to dayshift (mostly cause I have a couple phone interviews before noon on Wednesday). In the interest of not completely laming out an just paying the $5 (which I seriously considered), I thought I’d throw in a filler piece. So … here it is:
Did you know that in addition to being a burgeoning programmer, singer, bboy (lol.), and web designer (see last post), yours truly is also a mildly-talented poet (in his-own-clearly-not-at-all-biased opinion)?
In case you are curious, I thought I’d throw up a couple of old(ish) poems to fill this space.
Here is one I wrote shortly after getting into MIT:
A Scholar’s Aubade
An ode seems appropriate
To the classical style
Of the columns and the domes
Above the green court.
Many things have adorned that dome:
Squad car, fire truck, droid, and phone
But today, viewed in a mind’s eye—sunlight.
But as were that phone booth still apparent
From afar it now calls, and now I shall answer.
Over the river, and through the urban jungle,
Through the sky, 400 miles, as the airliner flies
But worth every inch, rod, meter or smoot.
It beckons to the mind and to the heart;
It beckons to the soul of a scholar.
Were I less knowing I might think not
That light fell from above onto that dome.
But rather, that the hemisphere
Gave forth the blazing light
ebullience of photons, amidst
Torrents of knowledge.
Its hallowed halls, numbered precisely,
Soon no longer a forbidden temple shall be
Instead, I shall tread there, such as I am
Learn from efforts I effect and others I see
O Halls, I shall greet thee, O Tunnels in winter
Traverse and find warmth to keep body to task
For knowledge, always, comes with a high price
In joules, dollars, cents, days and hours of rest
Long nights turn to dawns, nose to the grindstone
Maybe just one more tool; okay, maybe another.
But brother meets brother, and sister meets sister
On both sides of the river, and the work gets done.
Whether Greek or not, there is community here
A problem, or a set of them, is always seen through.
As the sun now rises, a new day sets in. In a few
hours of my life I will rise to these challenges.
With a chirping, I shall cross the paths that I come to,
Enter the halls .. and my journey shall begin.
~ D. B. Guy (December 2008)
and here’s a sonnet:
A morning dew sits on my dearest rose:
A shadow of evening’s coolness stands still.
How gleeful I’d be to remove that chill—
That accursed blight, I yearn to dispose.
Not in my powers, no warmth from me flows
Not matter the measure of my goodwill.
Only the sunrise this quest shall fulfill
And light, my dear efflorescence expose
Always that morning seems ever unsure,
Yet surely it comes as the world still turns.
Finite be the hours my rose must endure;
Nothing this must be allowed to obscure!
For surely as in the sky our sol burns,
Warmth still exists for my rose to make pure.
~ D.B. Guy (November 2007)
There are, in fact, more (though not a lot more) where that came from. I imagine a lot of the audience of this blog doesn’t particularly care. But if you would like to see more then you can let me know on zephyr or something I can forward you a link to where I post these things.
If you’d like to discuss or critique either of the above in the comments here, that would be cool too.
IAP is half over (!!!). I’ve had a pretty decent first half. Here’s looking forward to a good second half and a good term.
~Donald