Human Condition Homework Poem by Kevin Patrick

There was a man whose symptoms
was the human condition
it occupied his mind
every morning, day, and night
and so he earned degrees
in physics, psychology, philosophy
searching for the meaning
that pertained to existence
he slept like a shark
always on the hunt
and ate when his body
informed him of starvation.
His head filled with equations
and expertise citations
with chalkboards filling highways
all the way to the moon.
And then one day he sat
in his office at desk
and suddenly lightning struck
the lightbulb in his skull
and on a sheet of paper
he quickly wrote the answer
to the universes question
on a one page chapter
was the unified solution
it could not be rewritten
so he jumped in excitation
everything man searched for
was on this one sheet of paper
and it could not be repeated
if he begged or cheated
he went out into the hallway
to his bedroom on the balcony
and he shouted victory
over matter and entropy
but as he ran back to his office
his face divorced of jubilation
as he looked askance with horror
because there in shredded tatters
his dog had torn the paper

and the answer to existence
was eating by a dog