Group Poem

I wrote this for a class in college at the University of Michigan - I assigned 4 different people to read the different lines. Each person purposely looked like the stereotype described (sorority girl, engineer, hippie and black person). Bold text is read by all. LS&Play refers to LSA (Literature, Science and the Arts) and was deemed by Engineers at Michigan to be not a serious field. At the end, someone switched the lights on. 

It’s great to be human, man

We always remain

Quintessentially ourselves

Ourselves.

So look at us

Here we are, being ourselves

Or something like it.

Look at us.

What do you see?

Well, I’m clearly a Jew

Yeah, check out her shoes.

She’s sporting the UGGs!

And she looks like a bug

She’s living in a material world

And she’s a sorority girl.

Oh, one of those

I know just what you mean

Like, oh, my God…

It’s not Halloween.

Ok, so you caught me

She really is Greek

But I don’t screw a guy every day of the week

And we live in Michigan

It’s twenty below

My UGs keep my feet warm

And keep out the snow

And why do you care

If she wears funky shoes

Is it hurting you?

No

So enough with abuse

If UGGs make her happy

Then UGGs she will wear

She’s not telling you to

So why do you care?

At least she has a social life

Yeah, man, you’re an engineer

Her nose is always in a book

She’s never had a beer

Dilbert is my hero

She’s addicted to caffeine

Her eyes can stare for hours

At the same computer screen

She’s not that bad for dating

It looks good on resumes

Besides, she’s got the stamina

She’s up the whole night anyway

She could integrate a chicken

Find derivatives of rain

She has no life!

She won’t get drunk

She clearly enjoys pain

But maybe she’s just smarter

And is smartness such a crime?

She’s creating metric systems

While I’m making stupid rhymes

Classes without math are

From silly L S & Play

But engineers are changing things

They fix things every day.

At least you’ve got some smarts in you

I’m black, I don’t know shit

She eats a lot of chicken

And does drugs, you wanna hit?

She loves her hip-hop music

She commits a lot of crime

Her father and her brother

And her son, have all done time

But black

Is not whack

And I don’t

Like just rap

At least it’s a way

To express what you may

People just don’t understand what I say

She is soo deep

She must read lots of books

Man, life is bait, and we’re just the hook

Look at her cracked out, dreamy face

She’s thinking so hard that her head’s up in space

All she does is philosophize

She smokes weed all the time

And thinks she is wise

She strums her guitar

Loves the bids and the bees

We’re all connected, man

So she says to a tree

She sits at the coffeehouse

Contemplating worth

Decides that life is beautiful

Declaring

Man, PEACE ON EARTH

But hey, that’s just her style

If she wants to talk to plants

No one has the right

To put an ending to her rants                 

So next time you read

Something you just don’t get

Read it again-

It might be legit

Perhaps Jenny Knox favors asses

A lot

So what if she’s different

And smokes lots of pot?

If poetry causes you

Stress and confusion

It doesn’t mean you should just

Jump to conclusions

She’s being herself

And we all should agree

Assuming

Makes an ASS

Out of

U

And ME

You are in life’s waiting room

While you’re waiting

Lighten up.

Be so light that you float

Above the world, the only thing saving you

The stability of a car handle

Be so light that you

Feel you’re in a dream

Hey man, is this a dream?

The kid had said

Just turn on the light

The man says

Then you’ll know

Turn on the lights!  

He had said

Lighten up.

The light switch is functional

So we aren’t in a dream

This is reality

Reality? you say

Man, Hollywood’s reality is just a series of layers

A holy moment, and then

Then the awareness of the holy moment

The lights will turn off, but why

Would you want them to?

Lighten up.