In the Aftermath of an Engineering Binge

Athens, Georgia

June 6, 2012

My muse flipped me off last week

after too many midnights, head caught

in code, tweaking time step solvers

on an engineering binge.

She said you left that years ago

for herons, shoals, and metered lines

and who but one like you might find

your mind entranced in strings of code?

I said it’s just a short-time thing

      an algorithm coding fling

      my simulation fantasy

to make a number cruncher sing.

Just fine she said, half out the door

      composing raunchy metaphor

it’s art, I argued, and what’s more

my colleagues all swear, and you know’em

my programs resemble a poem:

      they tend to abort

      a syllable sort

ambiguous functions the norm.

As I said, my muse

      flipped me off last week.

Took up with a wild-eyed type,

      my evil twin Sal

who drives a souped-up symbol –

      nineteen sixty seven

      or eight mustang

which has nothing on my hybrid

when it comes to efficiency.

She was last seen riding shotgun

      top down, streaming

      raucous lines, the kind

she knows I never use. To choose

      the wild, a touch

      obtuse and bad

career move for a muse

‘cause "Reptile Brain" just cannot write.

      So I propose

      a compromise

pour tu, cher muse, inverse haiku:

     Wake up soon and savor dawn

                    engineer by day             

            after sunset, yield to art.

So ready now to channel

      phrases, randy words  

      stoked in the queue

long overdue, when can we start?

Photography by David Noah, Winterville, Georgia