The Lion
Once upon a midnight crappy, while I lay abed unhappy,
Struggling through some dull, pedantic treatise on the days of yore,
While I thought, “Well this is boring,” suddenly there came a roaring,
As of someone harshly snoring, snoring near my bedroom door—
“Tis my bastard neighbor’s snoring crashing through my bedroom door!
...Allergies must be hardcore!”
I recall, when I was younger, then for knowledge I’d a hunger,
So Columbia beckoned from the Hudson’s bleak and ominous shore;
Merrily I’d set to browsing through the courses and the housing
Options, every one arousing hopes for wonders yet in store,
And above those myriad matchless wonders college held in store
Reigned that paragon: the Core.
And each page’s breathless turning filled me with the thrill of learning—
Or had once. No longer did I thirst relentless after lore;
Now, that precious source of gladness lost, I felt my solemn sadness
Burst abruptly into madness, triggered by that thunderous snore:
“Fuck my asshole neighbor!” thought I, raging at his thunderous snore.
“He’s a douchebag to the core.”
Whence I shouted, red with fury, “I’ll be hangman, judge, and jury!
You will pay for all the anguish you have caused me! This means war!”
With hostility unbounded, if perhaps a bit ill-founded,
I arose and firmly pounded at my neighbor’s bedroom door;
But however hard I pounded at that asshole’s bedroom door—
Silence from that chamber’s core.
In that vacant hallway waiting, long I held my breath, debating
What misfortune had befallen him that dwelt beyond that door:
“Is he sick? Or in a coma? Was he kidnapped by the Roma?
Has his spirit found a home along the Acheronian shore?
Does his douchey spirit rest along the Acheronian shore?!”
I exulted from my core.
“But if he’s not here,” I wondered, “Whose Samsonian snoring thundered—
What pernicious demon’s roaring was it that I heard before?”
By this awful question hounded, I returned to bed, confounded—
When a deafening bellow sounded, blasting down my bedroom door!
“What the fuck? Whose fucking bellow’s blasting down my bedroom door?
...whoa. Is that a manticore?”
For, as I had now discovered, some fantastic creature hovered
Just beyond the threshold of my newly shattered bedroom door:
Frame of lion, wings of fallen angel, facial hair of Stalin,
Noble head of President Bollinger—and what a look he bore!
What a knowing, stern, demanding, grim and ominous look he bore!
“No! I swear, I love the Core!”
This I cried, and upward lurching, through my books I started searching:
“Here’s Herodotus! Thucydides! I’m sure I have some more!—
But thou regal, handsome lion, of the Western canon scion,
Tell me, in what name should my unbridled adoration pour?
Dude, just say the name, and watch this servile adoration pour!”
Quoth the lion, “Still-the-Core.”
I could not suppress a chortle: ha! What being, god or mortal—
Hermit—or heresiarch—or slave—or hierophant of yore!—
Who, but I, could boast of hearing such a ludicrous, endearing
Moniker? No longer fearing him, I said, “You’ve quite the roar!
Quite the cuddwy widdwle wion, yes you are, with quite the roar—
Cute and fuzzy Still-the-Core!”
Not a word he spoke rebuking; rather, he just started puking
Ink as black as Hades’ nether regions on my tiled floor;
“Hey! Come on, man! Who’s been feeding you?” I cried, my grin receding—
“Leave me to my crappy reading! I was nearly done before!
I had nearly finished all my crappy nightly work before!”
Then he queried: “Still-the-Core?”
“Yeah, it’s Global Core... whatever! Oh, you said your name, how clever—
What, are you a Pokemon? Get out of here! Or fix my door!”
Then, methought, I heard a purring—strange and low, but reassuring—
And my fury not enduring such a blow, I calmed, and more:
I imagined he possessed that single phrase, and nothing more,
And I pitied Still-the-Core.
And this gray, morose emotion brought to mind that lost devotion
Toward those educational pursuits I’d used to once adore:
Why was study now abhorrent? What repugnancy could warrant
Such ennui, whose torpid torrent drowned my desperate thirst for lore—
Drowned that beautiful, fulfilling, noble, desperate thirst for lore?
Could I learn from Still-the-Core?
Thus I pondered as I silently observed the lion’s violent
Vomiting—which, by the way, had covered my entire floor—
But that inky inundation carried no such revelation—
Just as western civilization not a single answer bore!
All that time and paper spent, and not a single answer bore!
Yet I studied still the Core!
Here the lights began to flicker, and the ink came faster, thicker,
Conjuring a sable lake where just was made a sunless shore;
With this hellish deluge rising, “Thou,” I cried, “hast no disguising!
Nor canst hinder my surmising why thou bless and curse my door:
Heaven’s mercy sends a flood to wash this bullshit out my door!”
Quoth the lion, “Still-the-Core.”
“Seer!” I countered, “Brazen mystic! Disregard thy agonistic
Tendencies, and truthfully supply the guidance I implore!
By thy mane with wisdom hoary—in this ancient dormitory—
Tell of that elusive quarry I so long have quested for!
Tell that end to Hums and gyms that I so long have quested for!”
Quoth the lion, “Still-the-Core.”
“Seer!” I countered, “Brazen mystic! Disregard thy agonistic
Tendencies! Stop trolling me! Don’t be a sacred knowledge whore!
By that blood that beats within you, tell this beast of bone and sinew—
Shall that tyranny continue o’er his books forevermore?
Shall my studies burdensome and shackled be forevermore?”
Quoth the lion, “Still-the-Core.”
“Cease thy Stygian oaths defying!”—I ejaculated—“Lying
Spawn of Mephistopheles, and of the Babylonian whore!
...Thine is but a false intrusion!—thou art merely some illusion—
And thy ebony effusion just some shitty metaphor!
But...” I scarcely whispered, “Even were thou dream, or metaphor...”
Quoth the lion, “Still-the-Core.”
And the lion, purring, mewing, still is spewing, still is spewing
Lightless, loveless vomit, filling, flooding all my tiled floor;
Let no further hapless child by this demon be beguiled—
Let this serpent of my tiled Aidenn haunt alone my door;
But ‘tis wishful thinking: only briefly stays he at my door...
I am lost; but still the Core!
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