Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Gears not of stars, but stardust

Return to your rooms with portraited walls,
Rejoice as you pass through our hallowed halls.
Restart the gears turning! (obedient learning)
Set machinery whirring! (obsequious purring)

Swallow the Cipro, you need not protest;
Close your eyes and gain seasons of rest.
Exams stand imminent, entertainments await;
Sleep now, dear child, for the hour is late.

Empty your head of agitating ills,
Such addled designs strain common sense, defy common will.
There's nothing here to arouse any action,
All has been cared for to immense satisfaction.
(Bravo! Such a virtuosic performance of administrative abstraction!)

Insistence on truth only hastens your fall;
Ask not! Stay enshrouded in clouds, wrapped in your perfumed shawl.
Ideals dissolve you from inside to out,
Save yourself, lie back in silence: there's no reason to doubt.

With temptation unlocked, nothing else will suffice,
Feel the anxious, magnetic tug of aspiration enticed,
Propelled by inexorable, self-fueled volition,
Compelled by the majesty of self-burning ambition,
(Assisted conveniently by ethical concision!)

Find magical form in the substance of dreams,
Look only ahead for those bright, gleaming things,
Tomorrow's a new day, petals painted in dew;
oh blessed child, the future's waiting for you.



Inspired by the events surrounding the University's forced closure of the self-organized, student-managed Dining Commons at Suites. It has outraged so many, but the question remains: can anything actually be done? Or will we simply be lulled back into our complacent Stanford lives, which the University seems intent on doing.

No comments: