Ballad of Manoj

Manoj goes a-hunting
Through the cryostat
He's searching for a phonon
In that frigid vat

He swims through lakes of nitrogen
And helium so cold
He fights his way through twisted pairs
And tiny wires of gold

He finds the sample chamber
And much to his surprise
A strange and wondrous world
Opens up before his eyes

He sees a lovely phonon
So curvaceous and so fair
Dancing naked in the moonlight
With flowers in her hair

He is smitten by her beauty
And he sees her night and day
But she is cold to his advances
And never lets him stay

He offers chips of silicon
And films of finest gold
But she leaves with an electron
So eager, hot and bold

Now they couple on the substrate
Passing heat back and forth
And the sample chamber
Is filled with their mirth

It echoes through the cryostat
Up past the vacuum pumps
And shows up in the data
As Jurgen's mystery bumps

Now Manoj sits in silence
And dreams of phonons in the buff
And hopes to squeeze a thesis
From this wretched stuff

- Kris Johnson -