Thursday, March 25, 2010

Manifesto: The Mad Student Liberation Front

[This is me trying to channel Wendell Berry's poem Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front. It's definitely a new style for me, so I would be open to any suggestions.]

Nap. Take the best part of the day
and offer it to your mattress.
Don’t call the girl of your dreams.
Be cynical. Of legends and spring.
Practice giving up. Let things go.
Call it forgiveness. Call it reality.
Don’t listen to friends.
Suspect every compliment.
In this you will always be free.

If this is too hard, give up on giving up.
Drop freedom and pick up surrender.
Practice falling down. Make it a game.
Roll down grassy hills sober.
Don’t stop rolling until your floating.
Swim to the furthest shore you can.
Think of new colors and paint them.
Get dirty. Invent stains. Do your mom’s laundry.

If that’s too hard, forgive yourself and try again.
Try to read Dosteosky, and when you fail
read the anthologies of Calvin and Hobbes.
Build a transmogrifier. Become a tiger.
Wrestle kindergartners. Play games you can’t explain.
Buy a red wagon and find a hill.

When school makes your mind small, stop.
Work. Work until your tired.
Work just hard enough to live.
Live poor or close to it.
Remember to play games.

If this is too much imperative:
examine yourself and do what you want.
Want good things. As for me,
I am going to go home
to pour a bowl of frosted flakes,
and watch Darkwing Duck with a friend.

Oh. . . and call the girl.