Poems for My GA Classmates

Could you talk a bit more about Anna?
Flame-haired, unflappable
Lone Linux loyalist

What might that look like?
Standing at a desk
Before it was cool

observant, thoughtful
Becky finds bugs in your site
where others did not

she’s always slipping
a dollar in your pocket
then you owe her cheese

a single haiku
could not do justice to her
generosity

I must confess
a private plot
to feed David ice cream
and bacon

(I hope
he’s not
a vegan)

slyly, surreptitiously stealing
his wardrobe
when it no longer fits

we’re probably
the same size
and I could rock
those coral pants

an eye roll
a head shake
a sigh and a squeak
so random and so right

I’m nervous, scared, afraid.
My Chinese bù hǎo.

After four weeks I work up the courage
to shuō hànyǔ to Hongyu.

My words are probably unintelligible
but he smiles
and tells me I am great.

Prophecies
of victories

In their glory
you belong

The day draws near
ne’er you fear

When you’ll crush Mike
at ping-pong

It’s tempting to talk about bunnies
in mean-spirited ways
to joke of their demise
and such.

It’s a terrible idea, though,
because in addition to being far smarter than you or I
Janice has the spunk and grit
to kick our asses.

smooth javagelato coffescript backgroundcuddlelove
quietly intense callback hamlback hollerback
angular singleton framework hardwork
parameterize conceputalize philosophize goals realized

Day 15.
Motivation waning already.
Karen is always so positive.

Day 36.
Karen seems less tired than the rest of us.
Superpowers?

Day 71.
New Karen theory:
Instantaneous naps while blinking.

Day 87.
Karen’s site has every Bootstrap color
And a tomato background
Incomprehensible productivity.

Day 89.
Karen is secretly seven feet tall.
She feeds on problems, solving them
and stealing their energy.

Laure has a quiet determination
laser-focus when puzzling over a project

I can’t help but wonder
when my comparatively dull mind wanders:

where do the r’s go
when Tom calls on Laure?

Do they find each other
caught in limbo
a purgatory adrift
floating in the basement air?

When I link obscure bands in HipChat
Libby is too nice to reveal
she’s already heard of them

She pretends I found something great
nobody else knows about
a rare combination of modest and cool

It’s not Matt’s fault it’s always so
cold
in the classroom.

It’s just that his genuine concern and
warmth
make everything else feel frosty.

I can think of no better man to wield the
awesome
power of an infrared thermometer.

The desert sun above me
My throat was dry as wood
But Matt sold me a wool coat
His pitch was just that good

If Mike Stone were a Spice Girl,

He’d be
Ginger
Spice
Sporty is the
obvious
choice but

He’s too hot for that.

Wearing a white
wedding dress is scarcely something
I envision for myself
but not because
I wouldn’t look hot.

Why,
I’d simply ask Praggya to take me shopping.
Sagely adivce on selection
sourcing and
style.

I will be so glad not to hear this
jackass
kid constantly swearing at his computer

Not to see him celebrate some random
success
and know he probably just found a typo or something

But in some ways I might miss his
enthusiasm
and I’m certain he will miss me and mine

Oh, Tom! Regale us with tales of ages past!
When computers ran on steam
When Sublime Text hadn’t yet ripped off
everything good about Emacs and
somehow still fucked it all up

Oh, Tom! Tell us about the present!
Share with us your wisdom
Hard-won in the years before we
could even code or type
or maybe even walk

Oh, Tom! Sing to us of the future!
When we will welcome our JavaScript
overlords and their
horrible function hunks

I am terrified
of deeply nested loops
afraid of getting stuck
and never emerging

not Yiyang
he figures them out
and makes it work
and leaves us in awe