Few days are left
To tell the story of the little protein
That from an egg ended up in the pharmacy
And into my throat.
Small miracle of evolution, I admire you
And love you
For your stubbornness and generosity.
Everyday hunt
Everyday leads me on a treasure hunt
With hints hidden below a coffee cup
And inside an orange.
I zigzag absent-minded while other proceed
Bloody on their metallic rigid tracks.
Resting at last, with my constellation
of secret places And my hands full
And sweaty.
Burning in/out
Noise and broken sentences
Crawl in my mind
Worrying why the job I used to enjoy
Is now a reason off dark dreams and tears.
Have I seen a part of it that disgusts me?
Is it just this broken environment I am in?
Is it inside me? Is it the situation?
I reject the whole package
And my life gets impossible,
and gets on.
Tickling brain
Numbers in the table,
Like kids holding hands in a line,
Show me the direction
While tickling my brain
In this hide-and-seek game.
The pull and magic of the hidden trend
Make me a solo artist
Behind the curtain of an unapologetic stage.
Limitless corner
Reason alone in a corner,
Curled up in thoughts of limitless costs
And added your innovation bloom
Like when you were
A just arrived first-year student.
Thoughts of Time and money
Chain your unique ideas
To a desk at the end of the classroom
Buy few steps
Will take you forward.
Oxymoron proofing
I move from one extreme to other
Picturing oxymoronic reality
To point the weak link
Of the theory.
Proceeding by extended
I make the interpretation idiot-proof
And solid
As a first stone for future steps.
Chance in the illogical
Tell me your secret
To enjoy the moment
When the plan diverts and the reality is illogical.
The shivering is sudden
And search for an explanation instantaneous.
A million doors are open at the moment
And you feel your chance has finally arrived.
Celebration day
A celebration day is on the way
I just realised this is the magic moment
The routine is interrupted
By a sharp flash of white light.
This will take the form of a time-freeze
With nor targets nor expectations
Only daydreaming and absurdities.
Hard work manuscript
Publishing comes at the end
And like parting leaves a mark
On the skin and in the memory.
Details seem minor and of no effort
But you know the price you paid
And the taste it left.
Experiences are joined
And the discovery is presented
Like the tale of your life
In the lab.
Mountain top
The setting changes around you
And a new view open.
You Change your situation,
When you trust your feet
And their instinct.
You can climb those crazy ideas.
From the top of the mountain
All the air is clean and struggles take a new dimension.
The grey fog of doubts and worries orbiting around my head
Vanishes
Under a childish blow
And a cheerful laughter
You haven’t heard for a while.
Surprise protein
The time spent planning and polishing details
is nothing against the odds of scientific research.
The controllable is mysterious
and your plan is just a forecast
of your protein’s behavior.
Predicted and overanalysed
still surprises you in the lab
when the unexpected happens and adrenalin is needed
to find the solution
to a confusing situation.
Fog
White thick fog surrounds me
In my circular walk
looking for silence and solitude.
My batteries recharge
And the fog reminds me it’s the season of rest.
In the fog I hide my fears, my worries and my inadequacies
as no reason I have to keep them.
Paint brush
Think about tomorrow
Push your imagination forward
Towards what is possible,
You read it somewhere,
And turn your desired into an image.
Stand up and find your brush
Your paint and your invisible mantle
And start to make it happen.
One inch every day.
Stairs 2
A stream of endorfins
Sweeps me away
When I glance the results.
Enough to make the day
Precious
Although at the first step
Of the longest stairs.
Career and life.
Microarray scanner
Staring at colourful images
I spend my day
In the visual investigation
Of proteins’ behaviour.
Colour intensities turn responses
To biological meanings
Under the powerful sight
Of a lens.
Attraction
Shiny as polished
Glassware waits for me
And the colourful protein solutions
Of today.
Swimming and swirling
In their soup
Proteins arrange and interact
Like people in crowded squares
Showing uncontrollable attraction.
Forecast
Research Planning is forecasting
What shines on that crucial moment
When your hands start moving
And your mind keeps quiet
For once
To follow the steps of the protocol
You wrote.
Justification
Great ideas do not need justifications
In an ideal world
We belong to,
But too far away
From the research world.
Pro and cons of my possible next brilliant step
Crowd my head
While I have to invent also
The next ideal justification.
BrushStrokes
Details are in the corners
And in the last strokes of the brush
To complete the aquarello
When nobody is watching.
Sitting at the desk
The many experiments transform
Fusing in a single story
Whose last slow details
Make me feel unique.
Synthetic biology
Hit after hit
The pathways are built
With their different speed
And gates.
Easy to simulate and assemble
Control is the art.
Chessboard
The squares of a chessboard
Assemble in my head
and rank equally important
Yet necessary and unique.
Experiments to answer doubts
And to move a bit the border of knowledge
Take my day
And fill my heart.
Monday 2
I take a walk
And hope it lasts so long
As Monday is quickly coming
And I am not ready
For its routine and vanity.
Corner after corner
I prolong this escape
And enough fresh air sinks in
To survive the shock of tomorrow.
Conference
Research is in your hands,
In your mind,
In your feet.
It takes you traveling in the world of unheard ideas
And to places of gathering
Where running free and drawing visions
Is the rule.
Stars
Polka dots and stars
Start to decorate my labbooks
And cheer up days full of expectation
Until the holidays
And the final answer that only repetitions can confirm.
Motus
Dynamic yet scared
I jump from challenge to adventure
Hiding my motus
And escaping in silence
Buy still reaching my love and my passion.
Water
My eyes have become lazy
Scrutinizing the day
for a glimpse of the future.
Active streams and imaginary flights
It is a hard job with sweaty palms
bringing the lost stream
To an inner silent spring.
Dichotomy
Lazy body and crowded mind
Make my person a dichotomy
With zeds from my feet
And sparks from my hair.
Silence and mental traveling
Stir my energy like a cocktail
And equilibrium is found
For now.
Prepare
I look forward
And start the Xmas tree
Two months in advance.
Being prepared is crucial
To give and obtain the most in difficult situations.
I prepare.
Patience 2
Silence bores me
And leaves a taste of wasted life.
Not paying attention
Makes my brain angry.
Agreeing for no reason
Sets my years of education on fire. Patience is not my thing.
Negotiation
I won’t listen to you
You that use the tactic of silence to win me over
To make your point with no argument.
You will not ridicule my preparation and my solid ground.
I will scream my reasons
And list my points.
The war is not over.
Deaf
I am deaf
To the complains of the lazy
Who do not see beyond their nose.
I am deaf
To the laughter of the bully who hides insecurity behind bad jokes.
But I am not blind.
Coffee 2
I listen to the marvelous details of politics and cars
While I warm up with a coffee
Sitting and listening.
Day after day this is the taste of my coffee
That would be sweeter
If handcrafts and holidays were the topic.
Patience
Patience is the unreachable
Holy grail
At the end of the project.
When you have it at your belt
Every obstacle is a small bump
On the road to the entertainment
Only life can provide.
Solution 2
Mixing and stirring
I introduce chaos and
I pace the event
To give the world a new solution
And a stepping stone to this long experiment.
Cup
Boiling and l laughing inside
I wait hopeful for the special person
That delivers results and analyses
And sip from this cup
Of bitterness and time management.
Slowly
Time flows slowly
While I read
And train myself to appreciate my reality
Of messy results
Looking for a logic
And persons I love
Trying to come closer.
Meetings
Organizing a meeting
and fearing its waiting,
Its notes, its pauses,
And my duty to speak
Of minimal details assuming monstrous importance
While life goes by.
Uneasy
A General uneasiness takes me
In this situation of peace and boredom
But the reason is unknown
And the real laughter is hiding still.
Review
A manuscript is sent
And the waiting begins
For months
Until the judgment is transformed
In lessons for the authors
And the discoveries are sent
To the world
Like tiny helping hands.
Google gives me answers,
My colleague gives me a smile,
Anytime
A hug is always on the way
From the ones we love.
This quick society cracked it.
Loneliness
Years of focused uninterrupted attention
To talks on mysterious topics
Turned me in a generalist
While developing
Myself and critical thinking for free.
Where is my core? Where is my passion?
Sleeping through the winter
Of scientific loneliness
Among thousands of specialists.
Perspective
Signs of age, symptoms of the changing time
Recur unexpected through my day
Shedding a cold perspective
On my actions and reality
I cannot always see.
Elegance
The candid dove of experimental design flies in
And shows to all the way
To elegance and beauty
Of working in the lab
everyday.
fireworks
Blue skies above and spiky roses below
Accompany my thinking
Everyday
And drift towards a future
Of renewal and fireworks.
Explorer
The train stopped
And the steps downwards made me an explorer,
Alone and fit in this stranger city
Of binding rushing active
my self-appreciation returned
And my accidents claimed their size
Made of insecure steps, bravery, and hidden years.
Pre-presentation
Giant and buffing the monster has me
Again at the door of the achievement.
His presence fills my room
And lays imperfections on my slides
Of no importance
While others breath freedom.
Lens
Tapping on the floor
I pace the value of my time
And train my patience.
External observers can judge my work
And evaluate my knowledge
Like a rough diamond under the lens
But no eye can know it all.
Espresso
Internally distracted by an espresso
I live intensity and frustration
In the same instant.
The high tide of energy will pass
Leaving a human and restless
Managing of time and ambition.
Way
Everything is possible
Yet the way had to be chosen
Based on a idealized arrival city.
Flipping a coin or following the heart
Are equal when the attitude decides
If it will reason or shine sun.
Killed
Curiosity killed the cat
And the researcher who bravely
Made long term plans
Seeking explanations to a phenomenon.
The three year long project killed the curiosity.
