Gray

(Here is an old poem I dug up from one of my old poetry blogs from about nine years ago and before.  It is in reference to a professor I had who had ridiculous criteria for giving A's on response papers in my History of Rock 'n Roll course.  While I wound up getting an A in the course, I absolutely grew to hate this guy for more reasons than simply because he was a Red Sox fan.  He was obnoxious, arrogant, and I'll even further elaborate with the word "pompous."

Please forgive my language in this piece.  I do not usually write quite this dirty in my work, though there have been a few exceptions over the course of the past twelve years.  I must have been really frustrated with life at this point in time, as I remember that it was in this semester that I would fail my first and only class in my entire scholastic career - Statistics - because once again, that old nemesis known as bipolar depression snuck up on me and I essentially stopped going to most of my classes by the last month of the Fall 2004 semester.  I would retake Statistics the following semester and pass it, then I took a two-year hiatus from school before returning to the University of Tennessee in the Fall of 2007.  So, with that, I hope you enjoy reading this for what it is, which essentially is the inane ramblings of a crazy son of a b*tch. -JPH)

Gray                                October 19, 2004

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas indeed.

The pain is too great. Need I concede?

"What before you other than a pad,

A pad and a pen, yet no purpose?" he said.

"A mind and a body but no real voice,

And a vault, with you as its lonely prisoner,

And you're locked inside, key thrown away,

Clothespin clipped firmly to your tongue.

So don't even bother me on this day,

For you're a failure in every way."

The guard is so subjective, my friend.

The guard is a spayed weasel. Fuck him being a Godsend.

Oh devilish monstrosity! I'm caught in a web,

A spider ready to feast upon my apparently empty heart.

I thought I was the sun until there was the eclipse,

And evidently, all the other people could still see

A world full of vibrant colors. Rainbows and stuff.

Me? Well, I guess I'm in the gray on that one.

The guard, he's the judge, too, my friend.

If you're not careful, he'll give you the bend.

Teacher! Teacher! Tell me what is light,

Tell me where to go to reach the light,

For according to you, I'm the epitome of a rainy day,

Despite all for you I slave and slave.

You're the prophet and you claim everyone else is, too,

But then there's me, and I'm the ugly duckling, the fool,

And that just makes me so blue.

I guess I haven't the soul to sing good enough for you.

Omnipotence is apparently the norm

To one who so pontificates his thoughts to the swarm.

Gray is my day drifting deftly into night.

An open casket invites me in for a flask of dirty water.

I haven't a thought that you'll appreciate,

So that casket looks so inviting tonight.

I lie down, dressed in a mundane tuxedo,

Looking like that fucking duckling.

Oh, wait. I am the duckling.

Slowly, its lid grows larger to my eyes

Until all is dark and not a shade of gray appears.

All are dead shadows in the land that never was,

A graveyard of what were creative thoughts.

Check. Nothing special. Nothing special indeed.

That check is gonna really bleed and bleed.