The Sound of Science

After writing this I searched youtube and discovered that this has already been done twice... one is about Darwin and the other is by the Beastie Boys.

-----------------------------------

                      Hello dark room, my old friend
                      I've brought my western here again
                      This time my protein's not degraded
                      This time the signal's not yet faded
                      And the bands will stand out like a yellow fly
                      With white eyes
                      And shine the sound of Science

                      In LTL I walk alone
                      Cultures still have not yet grown
                      Giving up I return to home
                      My pain is growing like a new genome
                      But then I turn around and from Wawa I buy hoagies
                      and two coffees
                      To fuel the sound of Science

                      And on the cover slip I saw
                      ten thousand cells or maybe more
                      Cells dividing without splitting
                      Cells dividing without quitting
                      Cells secreting hormones that others will not use
                      And then they fused
                      And grew the sound of Science

                      "Fools", said I, "You do not know
                      My thesis like a cancer grows
                      Read my words that I might teach you,
                      Read your mail that I might reach you"
                      But my pleas, like a senior thesis fell
                      And landed
                      On the shelves of Science

                      And at last I bowed and prayed
                      For a thesis real or fake
                      Then the words of a distant cry
                      Echoed down from a young PI
                      And the voice said "the path to a paper is high-throughput cancer stem cells,
                      not a gel."
                      And it spoke with the sounds of Science.

A series of awkward metaphors (or Modern poetry)

                      He shot me
                      with his eyes as I waited on the street corner
                      for the red light to turn green
                      with a plastic CVS bag
                      cradling half a gallon of milk and a box of tampons.
                   
                      The smoke cleared
                      from my eyes and I saw him diffuse into the atmosphere
                      of our local tavern happy hour.
                   
                      We mixed red wine with our hearts
                      And devoured each cup like thirsty grad students.
                      I told him how he shot me
                      and he offered to show me his gun-
                      I told him that the light was still red.
                   
                      "We both want the same thing,"
                      he whispered into my eyes,
                      but personally I thought it was the other way around.
                   
                      His bed looked just like a frozen waterfall
                      and felt about the same.
                      But before long the bed was singing,
                      the song was sweating,
                      the sweat was pulsing,
                      the pulse was bleeding,
                      the blood was smelling,
                      the smell was tasting
                      the taste was icing,
                      the ice was melting.
                   
                      And when we fell apart
                      like two used kitchen sponges, wrung together then carelessly tossed aside,
                      I gazed down at my weary carcass
                      and thought to myself
                      "Fuck. I left the milk out."

The Ballad of Unrequited Rhymes

This works best if you read it out loud.

---------------------------
                       Come gather 'round, friends, and listen to my song,
                       It's 'bout a girl named Marie, who never did right.
                       It's a story most tragic, but it ain't very slow,
                       And it'll bring you to tears sure as the sun shines photons.

                       Her father did toil on a Nebraskan corn field,
                       And his pain and his sorrow, he kept them out of sight.
                       And when Marie was nearby, he kept his lips closed,
                       And after slaving all day, he'd lie awake through the dark.

                       But now his eyes did grow dim, and the days hurried fast,
                       And he knew that his vision for long couldn't remain.
                       And for his fate, it seemed, the die was already thrown,
                       And his labors would likely be lost all in ineffectualness.

                       His son might have helped, and lifted the weight,
                       but his kidneys were failing in a cruel twist of life.
                       Their income too little, for surgery costs so high,
                       Father only could sob at the grave of his spouse.

                       Now when Marie turned twelve, there was no celebration.
                       She merely prayed to the Lord and asked for a gift
                       'Twas not for money, nor food, but an organ donor.
                       Yet as her brother grew worse, her plans did change.

                       On the eve of that Christmas, she poured her thoughts on a note.
                       In her brother's stocking she left it, and this is what she composed.
                       "This ship is fast-sinking, and I cannot tread water,
                       Its hull is fast-flooding, and it cannot be patched.

                       But with these gifts that I offer, you'll float without fail:
                       At once all a sealant, plank, hammer and screws.
                       (Just to be clear, dear brother, what I mean in particular,
                       is that my kidneys are now both yours to transplant)."

                       When her father found her the next morning, convulsed on the floor,
                       near an empty bottle of endosulfan, he knew without doubt
                       that she'd drank the dread poison and was gone forever hereafter,
                       and he cried right beside her till he almost passed into unconsciousness.

                       Now three days later Marie's brother finally found her note,
                       And the words struck into his heart like lightning flashes.
                       And with his mouth all agape and voice collapsed in his throat
                       he slowly turned his gaze to the urn with her ashes.

My first and last haiku

                       Haikus are a joke
                       unless they're in Japanese;
                       pig and I spring rain.

Life Passes

This may have been more fun to write than it is to read.

---------------------------
                       Life passes
                       Never slow
                       People come
                       And people go

                       Snow turns to rain
                       Rain turns to snow
                       People come
                       And people go

                       Foe becomes friend
                       Friend becomes foe
                       People come
                       And people go


                       Life passes
                       People go
                       People come
                       And friend becomes foe

                       Never slow
                       Snow turns to rain
                       People go
                       And people come

                       People come
                       Rain turns to snow
                       Foe becomes friend
                       And people go


                       Life passes
                       Friend becomes foe
                       People go
                       And rain turns to snow

                       People go
                       Never slow
                       People come
                       And foe becomes friend

                       People come
                       Snow turns to rain
                       People come
                       And people go


                       Life passes
                       Rain turns to snow
                       People come
                       And snow turns to rain

                       Friend becomes foe
                       People go
                       Foe becomes friend
                       And people come

                       People go
                       Never slow
                       People come
                       And people go


                       Life passes
                       Snow turns to rain
                       Foe becomes friend
                       Never slow

                       Rain turns to snow
                       Friend becomes foe
                       People come
                       And people come

                       People come
                       People go
                       People go
                       And people go


                       Life passes
                       Never slow
                       People come
                       And people go

Poetry Exercise #13: Yeast's lament

                       It's over. Sorry, but I just can't stand
                       it anymore. Yes, we had a deal, my strands
                       would split at your command. I let you cut
                       parts in and out and you inserted what
                       you wanted. In return, you would provide
                       food, warmth, and shelter so I could divide.

                       But then I fell into your trap as warm
                       broth turned to a centrifugal yeast-storm.
                       Oh, I admit, it turned me on, when you
                       encased my walls with PEG at 42
                       degrees, and maybe I enjoyed the feeling
                       of all your naked DNA annealing,

                       yet if, by chance, I wasn't in the mood
                       you spread me out and took away my food
                       until I grew to love your plasmid. But
                       you've fixed me in formaldehyde and shut
                       me in a freezer; prematurely stole
                       my spores and starved them in the dark. My whole

                       cytoskeletal matrix is confused
                       still from that time when you, for fun, diffused
                       synthetic alpha factor till I shmooed.
                       And now, we're through. I'm longing to return
                       among the grapes and vines, where they have learned
                       the value of a happy spore's concerns.

                       Before I go, I'll leave you one last thought:
                       That happiness is not a fight hard-fought;
                       It's neither captured, traded, sold, nor bought;
                       From neither friends nor fortune is it wrought,
                       Though, like a cold, it's often lost and caught.
                       All efforts otherwise amount to naught,
                       Till happiness inside thyself is sought.

Anapaestic hexameter is hard

                       When I'm working in lab and I'm draining the drops that remain in a flask,
                       When I'm out at a bar and I'm eyeing the ice in the depths of my glass,
                       When I'm laying in bed and I'm circled by scenes of regret for the past,
                       I reflect and I see that in all of these three I'm just watching life pass.

Another Day in Lab

                       The gentle scent of cigarettes
                       diffuses through the air.
                       It hides the smell of TEMED spilt,
                       pipetted without care.

                       "He should have used the hood!" I cried,
                       but then I acquiesce.
                       I've suffered worse, and learned this truth,
                       It's better not to stress.

PhD Blues

Roughly to the tune of Heartbreak Hotel


                       Well since I got rejected
                       From NSF and DOD
                       I've been at the bench for three lonely years for
                       a blank CV

                       [Chorus]
                       Yeah, PhD blues,
                       Got the PhD blues,
                       Well this P-h-D is
                       killing me.

                       Well my PCRs a failure
                       Just like my transformation
                       And I've been cloning GFP since
                       I don't know when

                       PhD blues,
                       Got the PhD blues,
                       Well this P-h-D is
                       killing me.

                       Well I finally wrote my thesis
                       The data are all so clear
                       But my PI's controls will take me
                       Five more years

                       Got the PhD blues,
                       Yeah, PhD blues,
                       Well this P-h-D will
                       never be.

                       [instrumental break]

                       Well I've heard of Armageddon
                       And I've heard of twenty-twelve
                       I've even been told that there's a
                       Heaven and hell.
                       Well I can't predict my fate
                       No I don't know my destiny
                       But when I die I still won't have my
                       GOD DAMN PhD!

                       Got the PhD blues,
                       Yeah, PhD blues,
                       Well this P-h-D is just a
                       fantasy.