Love Song for an Unwritten Senior Comprehensive

by Joseph McCombs

            TONY THE TIGER
            Über mensch

Let us go then, to my cube,
Where books lie dormant, stale, unused
Like dining hall cookies on a table;
Past bound volumes I've never read,
People I talk to instead,
To the books involving social psych.
These are books I used to like
But now comprise tedious arguments,
I know not their intent.
Comp avoidance: What an inclination!
No longer could I fight it;
That is why I didn't write it.

The psych professors come and go,
Musing, "Such a shame about Joe..."

And indeed there will be time
To start chapter one, start chapter one,
To convince my advisor it's already done
And revised, and chapter two's begun --
[He will say: "He's finally doing well!"]
My denim shirts rumpled, beginning to smell
From several nights in the library hell --
[He will say: "At least he's writing well!"]
Am I done
With my opening thesis?
With each meeting's a barrage
Of suggestions for revisions that tear all my thoughts to pieces.

For I have tried them all already, start to end:
Have known all-nighters of working hard,
I have measured out my comp in index cards;
Making statements I know I can't defend
Of a hypothesis that is not true
    So what should I presume?

And I have cited already, Langer, and Frable,
Rothbart and John, and Richard Jenks;
Cited and quoted and memorized to heart,
With draft after draft strewn about the table,
But how should I start
The beginning of the end of a grand college prank?
    (I'm failing, I presume?)

Should I, after Jolt and Camel Lights,
Find myself too wired to type, or to write?
But though I have strained here, wept and perspired,
Though my advisor wants to see my head upon a platter,
I'm not getting done -- and I'm not sure it matters.
Grad school applications are long withdrawn,
I'll still be jobless when the summer's gone,
And in short, I'm tired.

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