Academic lectures delivered by a tenure-seeking English professorObediently conform to the assumed rules of institutional hierarchyNot in terms of composition but in the strict sense of the necessaryEntanglements that are a certainty considering the environmentLofty grammar, diction, the inevitable syntactical inconsistenciesA dense network of ambiguities constructed with studied disregardIncontrovertible truth observed and correlated to seven places
Listen to the bluster in his voice, when it’s given an openingIt bursts in quite naturally even as, I admit, it’s a little unexpectedA trademarked flying disk pitched haphazardly, or “winged”As you might say, an ubiquitous metaphor for human songGiven air, out of tune, a nursery rhyme repeated by preschoolersComporting themselves as if they feared no real dangersThe way tigers act, or certain whales hunted by haunted menThese are not the consequences educated owls should endureBut ravens, maybe, their croaked howls making invocationQuite incite a fearfully critical attack on the ol’ alma mater
In monographs and published tomes staples can be foundThey sometimes join the jotted odd non-essentials of the institutionNot merely the unproven legends worming through their universeOne hears brass bells reverberating interpretations of the timeOrigins dislocated by intervening period-correct carved facades of stoneA carillon, strangely youthful, brassy, ricochets off ivied wallsIntent, symphonic and focused, in spite of the ambivalence of voicesLayered in cross referenced echoes extreme beyond all isolation
We are entitled, much the same as the perception of time dyingTo look away in the direction where we notice a crow flyingBecause the crow, whether you know it or not, is a song birdVery much in the spirit of reasonable, firmly held factual dissectionsReplete with rigorously documented and carefully enumeratedStrangleholds on pregnant ideas bursting with spring’s ripe fevers
We watch as the clock fast forwards to the subject of valedictionA wave goodbye to the broken prose the course of summer takesSheathed in a muted whine and buzz of cheap reproductionThe original electrifies via the ranks of propaganda’s privilegeEarbuds given gratis to the interested, the spirited and free