Kaiser

Kaiser

My best enemy

We weren’t always this way

It was our time in 150/151 that brought us together

The two of us

Among the eight elite chosen for that class

Running a gauntlet few could withstand

Let alone desire

You bested me several times

And yet you never triumphed

Quiz after quiz

Assignment after assignment

You came out on top

But when it really mattered, I won

It was at the end of the year that I seized victory

And won your contempt of myself

Final exams

We were all looking to score a win at the end of the season

You came to me with a proposition:

Take a fall and guarantee your victory

I gave no definite reply

But in my head I vowed to best you

And so it was when the scores came out

I was number one

And even more humiliating,

You were number three

Fast-forward a little while

It was yearbook-signing time

I wrote three separate entries in your yearbook

You wrote two in mine

I can tell which one you wrote first

And I still love reading them

The first was the generic one

Good luck, keep in touch, all the usual nonsense we write in high school

The second was a scathing diatribe

Against everything that you deemed wrong with me

The crazy (and strangely enjoyable) thing about it

Was that you were mostly right

Time passes

Memory fades

Forgive; maybe

Forget; never

IQ Alpha

IQ Alpha
You are the beginning
I am the end
You are finesse
I am force
You are the light
I am the darkness

The IQ designation was given by others
Alpha and Omega we took ourselves
We are men of details
Committed to knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom
Which one of us was greater?
The answer is known by both and neither of us

You always had your ways with words
Bringing Shakespearean nuance to every sentence
You could make anything seem grand
With your distinct turn of phrase
Now you're studying law in NYC
And I am already seeing the possiblities
Your own law firm,
IQ Alpha and Associates
Your partners will be Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, Henry IV, Prospero, Caesar
And possibly Richard III (and maybe even Petruchio, if you're feeling bold)

Starlight

Starlight
I can't always see you
But you're always there
You're off in the distance
But your light still reaches the earth
Always shining
Sometimes flickering
Occasionally blocked from view
But never gone

It will be a dark day
And an even darker night
When you're gone
We'll all feel your absense
And miss the light you shone on everything

Bertrand

Bertrand
In an age of intellectual conformity
You stand as one of the few contrarians

Disagreeing with almost everything
Sometimes just for fun or the sake of disagreement

You were a serial troublemaker for some of our teachers
But in the best way possible in that you challenged their wisdom
Rather than just absorbing it like most others
True, you also partook in traditional trouble making
Like that one time you brought that RC car to class

We shared a passion for criticizing and mocking
The various works of garbage literature that we had to read
Our essays exposed the conspiracies and leftist agendas in their authors
Or just pointed out the silliness of their contrived plot lines

If only we could get a TV show with some of our friends
Dedicated to saying the nuttiest things ever
It seems far fetched, but hey
The History Channel gave a show to that guy on Ancient Aliens
And I'm confident would could concoct theories ever more absurd that his
So there's always hope

BlckThndr

BlckThndr
My old friend
We go back a long ways
Yours is one of the most significant appearances in my life

Let's turn back the clock a little
To a time few know about
My forces were being eviscerated
I had been in a steady retreat for over a year
As an overwhelming army came at me from every side
And relentlessly pursued me to the ends of the earth
Then you appeared and reinforced my position
Giving me the strength to hold the line
The war was far from over
But it was no longer a doomed campaign

I think that's why I was so loyal to you
If you were going, I was going
If you said yes, I said yes
If you didn't like it, I didn't like it

I don't think I realized then
That you endured a few attacks for taking my side
I don't think I ever thanked you either
Or could ever pay you back for what you did

You also posed to me a simple question
A single question
With infinite consequence
And that's how I met Him

Pyramid Scheme

Pyramid Scheme
You always said you were going to cheat your way through life
And that’s exactly what you did
How much of your advancement was taken from others?
Did you ever earn an honest grade?
What’s even worse were the people like me
Who for some reason helped you along

Case in point: AP European History
It was only because of me you got a B in that class
And a recommendation to advance to the next AP class
During the AP exam you sat across from me
I got the maximum score
Guess what? So did you!

One of the great mysteries of high school
Is why others and myself did these things for you
What did we gain from it?
Nothing
What did you gain from it?
Everything

I understand you’re now working for a shady legal firm
That is suspected of being a pyramid scheme
You always said you were going to cheat your way through life
And that’s exactly what you’ve done

Fresh Prince of India

Fresh Prince of India
You hold the record
For the most dramatic transformation during high school
From Indian FOB to hip-hop wanna-be

I remember when we first met during freshman year
It was lunch and you came over with another guy
You were so quiet
And seemed a bit intimidated about being in high school
We were all foreigners entering that environment
But you especially so

Time passed
The FOB disappeared
Your talk changed
Your clothes changed
Your music changed
Your style changed
You became Americanized in one of the most comical ways possible
Gone was the timid boy of freshman year
Calling out the honeys was the balla guy of junior and senior year
“Hi” was replaced with “wassup?”
Do you even remember what you used to be like?
Or do you not like to think about it?

I think I understand part of why you changed
But your trading of one stereotype for another
I can’t quite wrap my head around
The old you could not survive high school
But I’m not sure the new you was really you at all
Just a smokescreen; a cover
To hide what you thought was undesirable
You had to keep that old Indian side of you hidden

High school is over
It’s trivialities expended
Maybe now that you’re beyond that nonsense
You can finally be comfortable in your own skin

Polska

Polska
How are you still alive?
In spite of everything you do
How do you persevere?

Always you are straddling the line
Between genius and idiocy

Over the years your escapades have provided us with many stories
But there’s one that stands out in my mind
You gave us the greatest employment story ever told
You got a job at Albertsons in San Diego
Even though you were going to school at UC Irvine
Your manager came up to work out your schedule
And then you told her your situation
You worked for exactly two weeks over winter break
And your manager hated you every moment of it
Words cannot describe the glory of this coup

1600

1600
You are masculine perfection
Genius intellect wrapped within an adonis physique
No riddle that could not be solved
No mountain that could not be moved
But every superman has his kryptonite
And I know yours
For all your wit and might
A lowly burrito is your undoing
Consume one and into deep sleep you fall
Not even the tempest can wake you
Nor my frequent phone calls
(wake up already!)

Today you walk the Windy City
Nearing the end of a long tunnel of academia
This journey has taken a lot out of you
But it fails to take your smile
There’s still a sun behind those clouds
And you still brighten peoples’ days

The world may run on Dunkin
But Chicago runs on you

Ode to the Polish Taxicab

Polish Taxicab, what can I say of thee?
A white Volvo you were
Plain and unsightly
But your dull exterior concealed your true identity:
An old warrior who wasn’t ready just yet
To give up the fight

Your rear seat belts were usually missing
And your brakes didn’t always work
In fact a number of times I was concerned for my own well-being
But your blatant disregard for safety never stopped you from giving us a good time

Do you remember all those beach trips?
Do you remember doing donuts in parking lots?
Do you remember that one time there were so many of us that we could not all fit in the seats and we had to put one guy in the trunk? And when it turned out he was claustrophobic?

But your greatest gift of all was hidden beneath your engine.
A weapon that struck fear into the hearts of the lawless
And helped us dish out vigilante justice when the law had failed
True, it was abused on multiple occasions
But that was all part of the grandeur
Yes, it is true
You had police and ambulance sirens

Do you remember the time we saw some girls make an illegal left hand turn and we made them jump out of their seat and pull over?
Do you remember the time you screamed and those two guys started running like the police were chasing them?
Do you remember the time when you made a quick sound, a guy turned to look at us, and then he walked straight into a light post?
Do you remember the night in the canyon when you called out, and a distance police car answered?
Do you remember the time in the car wash, when we set off your sirens and then an actual police car drove right past us at the exit?

Polish Taxicab, you were the best friend of a slightly deranged Polish guy,
And his friends who were too foolhardy not to join in his madness
Wherever you are
Here’s to the memories