- ZEBRAFISH TANKAS
Simon Chanin
Most fish freeze or swim,
But this one's having trouble.
Forty milligrams?
Looks like we gave him double.
No wonder he's upside-down.
This tank is scary.
I should hide on the bottom.
Now they can't see me,
The enormous net holders,
Who immersed me in cocaine.
Erratic movements.
They increase and they decrease,
Depending on the drug.
A fish may dart to the left,
Or maybe instead just freeze.
If only they knew
How funny they look in there
Frantically swimming;
It's almost as if they know
That today we brought tricaine.
We test zebrafish.
We isolate them in tanks,
Administer drugs,
And we watch, to understand
Psychopharmacology. D
- AND A TANKA
Tamerlan Kalueff
A fish or Zebra question asked
A soul or body what's important
In dreams in thoughts in life
Forward I swim and backward in darkness
Truth is elusive as hiding moon behind clouds
-
ZEBRAFISH TANKAS
Dr. Allan Kalueff
Like pure snowflakes
that cover silently the peak
of Slidell-Yama,
zebrafish fall and fall down
to the bottom of their tanks
Naive little shy fish,
why do you swim so fast now?
your stripes are so pure,
like sorrow of a child who forgot
to put samples at -80
Freeze, freeze, my little friend,
Bottom of the tank will shelter
You from all the troubles
That you have in a real world.
I wish you can see sunshine...
- ZEBRAFISH POEM
John Chung
We're Danio Rerio in Kalueff lab.
Here we get drugs with no bag.
Free coke, LSD and X.
No Tweak Mission needed.
But there's not much privacy here.
With video cams and Noldus running.
Not to mention that you're touching me.
Take your fingers off me please.
Acute caffeine/morphine treatment,
Works every-time just like for humans.
All of a sudden, life treats nicely -
May the Honeymoon last forever.
Chronic ethanol and diazepam.
Tragic withdrawal agonies come.
Erratic movements because of stress.
Let me return to where I belong.
Sid's dissolving white powder.
Pouring in a little beaker.
Tricaine, must be like cocaine.
Paradise, here it comes. F
- INSIDE THE TUBE (TANKA)
Andrew Freeman
Inside the tube
The homogenizer's harangue
solid fish to murky paste
We dilute the contents
To distill their meaning
- VERY ZEBRAFISH VACATION
Joseph Enriquez
One day while walking by some trees,
A zebrafish asked me for some cheese.
I walked on by without a word,
Zebrafish can’t talk, you silly bird!
I later bought a novel tank,
And found the same zebrafish at the bank.
Suddenly, I knew what his words had meant,
I forgot to wear gloves in the LSD experiment.
- THE LIFE OF A ZEBRAFISH
Sidarth Bagawandoss
Zebrafish oh zebrafish how cute you are
I think about you all the time while at the bar
With your tiny stripes and bulging eyes
You stare back at me admiring my large size
Then I drop the tape and you scatter
While I record your movements, you begin to chatter
What is it I ask and you lean close to the glass
And you reply, just let me last!
- ZEBRAFISH SEMI-TANKAS
Andrew Freeman
Swimming in repose
The pippete descends with haste
Curiosity
Seized by unyielding surprise
PCP is no red bull
What can a fish tell you?
A fish cannot help but speak it's mind,
He is so honest, the crudest of rhetoricians,
Sworn to a candid cause of science.
To foretell the fortunes of fate, he cannot feign immunity or impassiveness.
So sucsceptible, so harmless,
Yet all demigods for the preservation of knowledge--insatiable and alluring.
"They are kind of cute, too."
- ZEBRAFISH TANKAS
Mohamed El-Ounsi
Whether up or down
Close together or apart
Shoaling data’s used
To determine behaviors
Sometimes they blend together
Keen eyes will detect
When they are being type shy
Penicillin pills
Or give psychoactive drugs
Behaviors reveal the truths
- ZEBRAFISH NEUROPHENOME PROJECT
(ZNP) DATABASE TANKA
Ari Davis
Oh, long live ZNP!
You are mighty as can be
Zebrafish bible
We praise you all day and night
Please share your secrets with us
- ODE TO MIRROR BITING (TANKA)
Evan Kyzar
Different zebrafish,
Or just my own reflection?
I really don’t care
I will attack regardless
Alas! He attacked as well
- OCEAN TANKAS
Andrew Roth
For these shallow seas
I left my Cyprinidae
Infinite abyss
suddenly stranded in glass
Sweet silence of the ocean
Stiffled by buzzing
Bustling zebrafish swim
Their fins sway and swarm
Though safe in this shiney cell
Sanctuary is the Ganges
-
CONTROL FISH (TANKAS)
Christopher Collins
Hallucinogen?
LSD or peyote?
No thanks, not today.
How bout’ a little cocaine?
Not today, I’m the control.
Some picrotoxin?
I hear that’s bad for your brain….
So pass on that too.
Well what do you want to do?
I’m gunna go shoal with friends.
-
ZEBRAF?SH POEM
Siddharth Gaikwad
Only if they understood my need
They would be bathing me in weed
Instead they give me speed
They get me high on LSD
Floating at the top of the tank
While some of my fellows try to bank
They try to test my memory
By serving me food that's savory
Hoping to improve it with piracetam
I think its all a sham
They skin other fish
By putting them in a dish
Extracting alarm pheromone
Trying to rattle my bones
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-
O ZEBRAFISH! MY ZEBRAFISH!
Simon Chanin
This small, striped creature may not feature in science textbooks yet,
But in the tank, web-cam at flank, and when they're fleeing from the net,
We mainly catch them and dispatch them, but it's not to our regret,
It's not in vain, it's for the train (of science), that their dismal end is met.
The first fish, control, is rather droll, and quickly starts to freeze.
The next, group B, with LSD, explores the top with ease.
The ketamine group, who swim in a loop, make circles as they please.
And that's how we study our zebrafish buddy for stress and anxieties.
- ZEBRAFISH NEUROPHENOME PROJECT (ZNP)
Dr Allan Kalueff
To ZNP, or not to ZNP? - this question
is the one that often must be asked -
And whether the dillema's even taugher,
Do not allow users' minds to suffer:
Upload data, to avoid transgression -
Meandering of outrageous fortune,
that zebrafish so graciously show
Or to use "Noldus" to record the fish 3D -
Reducing bottom preference and freezing,
To stop, and move erratically - forward, free...
- POEM OF FREEDOM
(Do not lose your ZEBRA
within your fish...)
Tamerlan Kalueff
I dream of Africa beloved
Of Grasslands free and rivers full....
But locked within a cursed cube
My life is miserably dull
And even though my soul is free
Was born a ZEBRA strong and proud
The cruel truth - I am fish
With funny scientists around
- ZEBRAFISH POEM
Andrew Freeman
There once lived a fish, danio rerio,
A seminal to the Train of Science,
His chances of life were very low
Next to his merit in statistical reliance.
He spends his days with his neighborly friends,
awaiting his glorious trial,
To swim in the maelstrom of mescaline's attend,
if he had a real face he would smile.
Endocrine stress response
The Dive tank Seance
Stimuli exposure,
Will we ever have closure?
the fish they start to faint
As certainty abates
The underwater gems
get to do it all again.
- TRANQUIL CONTROL
Andrew Freeman
The tranquil A-control
Watching group B is quite droll
Play with the dosage
C - erratic and spazzing,
No survivors get to mingle
- STARCROSSED LOVERS
Louie Monnig
Oh zebra fish flowing so fluid and free,
Of thy slick fins these eyes long to see.
Through the novel tank you do glide, little swimmer,
How you swim to the top and those navy stripes do glimmer.
With your puckered mouth directed toward the sun,
Danio rerio, my love for you is a pure one.
Twas my first time DCM, that sterile yet romantic land,
Why bad things happen to good fish, I will never understand.
It saddens me with how I must proceed,
Of my warning, please, little fish, heed.
Dr. Kalueff wants me to euthanize you,
Give you drugs like LSD, reserpine, and psilocybin too.
The plan is to remove your brain for further study,
Then grind up your body as well, little buddy.
Why is this world so cruel I do ask?
How can I partake in this horrible task?
I love you, my dear fishy, you do know this
That body, those stripes, our time together I will miss.
- THE MIND’S EYE: ILLUMINATED
Nicholas Capezio
Around and around and around they swim,
Where’ll they stop, and where’ll they begin?
Stop and shake and erratically move
Freeze top, freeze bottom- oh wait- he bottom swims too
We watch and sit and try to spy
What lies inside of their little mind’s eye
Seemingly normal until some patterns diverge
Not up nor down but rather- freezing is observed
Through this we can now see,
That their mind’s eye is not free.
For instead their head has been hampered and fed
A mescaline treated environment is his that he tread
The fish is alarmed and he moves without reservations
The tension is built through erratic gesticulations
Upon tricaine, the data reveals most conclusively
Cortisol levels are spiked- having been affected notably.
We enter it in- through software designed
to allow others to replicate what we find.
A community of science is one that is revealed
Free-flowing knowledge ensures no one to yield.
All of this must be of great importance to thee
For all we care is the truth that be.
Evermore we persist in attempting to see
To observe a mind’s eye is a remarkable thing
While not holy nor forever- but with great technology
we continue to discover- the future we shall bring.
- ZEBRAFISH INSPIRATION
Mohamed El-Ounsi
Some things are tedious, some things are straight
But truthfully there can never be a debate
Brain dissections and cortisol extractions
Provide us with the answers and definitions
The fish are scared, the fish are frightened
But all of our excitement is only heightened
Collecting and analyzing data is too intriguing
Providing the knowledge we all are seekings
- YUMMY
Ari Davis
Whether wild type, leopard, albino, or longfin
These fish prove valuable friends who love to swim
Even though we did just pump you full with Tricaine
Don’t worry zebrafish, your loss won’t be in vain
Zebrafish, you look so good to eat
But at the size of a minnow it would be a light treat
And with LSD in your system from the drip
I don’t want to risk the trip.
- SID VISH-FISH (TANKA)
Evan Kyzar
Erratic swimming
Corkscrew movements and seizures
I need more drugs now
Though I am only a fish
I am jonesing for morphine
- ADDICTED TO THE LIFE
Jeremy Green
I am a fish on LSD.
The colors and shapes, what’s happening to me?
Day in and day out they give me drugs.
I prefer the ecstasy and to give fish hugs!
I know my addictions are evil and ill
But drinking Psilocybin is such a thrill!
One day I’m sure the Tricaine awaits,
To leave my fish body in a lifeless state.
But until that day comes I will drink like a fish,
To trip everyday is my dying wish!
- SERENADE FOR THE OLDEST ZEBRAFISH IN THE TANK (TANKA)
Andrew Roth
A veteran of the seasoned tank,
I veer straight for the student's net.
Opiates, stimulants, and depressants,
which pattern will I weave this time?
Only psilocybin could shape these billowing clouds,
Colors that drape all around.
A sweet serenade as my luck comes to an end,
The sedative slowly rocks me to sleep.
-
ZEBRAFISH ZEBRAFISH
Christopher Collins
Zebrafish Zebrafish, drugs go into water with a swish,
Everything you’ll find in this lab cept’ a Petri dish,
Because we want to suppress this (our) stress, I guess.
Reboot the computer, NOLDUS crashed, I profess.
At the end of this day I still like this fish, yes.
Freezing bouts and bottom preference shouts,
It’s anxiety, for that I have few doubts.
Swim swim swim swim.
Here comes the grim, as Fishy’s lights dim
-
CIRCULAR MOTION (TANKA)
Siddharth Gaikwad
Swimming round and round
Never drifting or freezing
Don't stop zebrafish
Are you tired and weary?
Or craving more ketamine?
Calm the zebrafish
Swimming in its fragile home
Free from desires
Its mind is a mystery
Its life, pharmaceuticals
-
ZEBRAFISH TANKAS
Jeremy Green
I’m a zebrafish
Swimmer of the novel tank
I like many drugs
They make me see crazy things
Who are these people watching
They call me zebra
I prefer to go by carl
These people watch me
Waiting to see what I do
I, sir, am not the walrus
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