Once upon a noontime boring, while I pondered, nearly snoring,
Over many a paragraph of Stephen Hawking's endless drawl,
While I nodded, nearly thinking, suddenly there came a blinking,
As of some lost ruby winking, winking from the corridor wall.
"Tis some old lightbulb," I muttered, "Blinking on the corridor wall--
Only this, and that is all."
 
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was not quite yet September,
And each sunbeam's long-limbed member threw its light into the hall.
Eagerly I wished for classes; vainly I had thought that passes
Through the library (sans glasses) helped in speeding time's slow crawl.
But alas, the opposite was true, in fact I do recall--
Time refused to move at all!
 
And the golden gleeful glisten of the light in this school-prison
Warmed me--warned me of the dangers of the blinking in the hall;
So that now, to calm the pounding of my heart, I stood expounding
"Tis some lightbulb throwing photons at the corridor's blank wall--
Some old lightbulb, needs replacing, throwing photons on the wall--
It must be, and that is all."
 
Presently I grew a pair, and hesitating no more there,
"Fluorescent," said I, "or Incandescent, for your forgiveness I must call,
But the thing is, I was reading, and your light came so unheeding
Toward my eyes so rudely speeding, toward my eyes and toward the wall,
That I'm unsure of your origin--" Here I turned to face the wall--
A painting there, a meter tall.
 
Deep into that painting staring, long I stood there, quite despairing,
Wondering how a painting hideous as this became installed;
But the art, ineffable, returned my gaze, and I, in full,
Began to have a staring contest with this art within the hall--
With this grim, ungainly, ghastly, and quite ominous stretch of wall.
Neither blinked. And neither palled.
 
Then this colorful art beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the multitudinous hues upon its canvas deftly sprawled,
"Though your face is bruised and broken, you," I said, "Surely aren't joking.
Amateurishly painted token of our art club's boorish gall,
Tell me what your artsy name is, or I'll have to leave this hall!"
Quoth the Wizard, "Katawa."
 
Much I raged at this resulting art that said such words insulting
As it sat so pompously in its place upon the wall.
"Ass," I yelled, "You fucking bastard--whoever made you surely plastered!--
That is a word I will not stand, from man or beast or painting all!
Don't you know who the fuck I am?" I shrieked, grabbing the frame so tall--
Quoth the Wizard, "Katawa."
 
And the Wizard, never drifting, though its colors still are shifting,
Gazes deep into my soul as here I sit inside the hall.
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the fluorescence o'er him streaming throws his colors on the wall,
And my sanity from out that swirl of colors on the wall
Won't be rescued. Not at all.