Dirge against the Dons

It climbs atop a precipice
where lesser minds have tumbled down;
it clings on to a benefice
in Oxford or in Cambridge town;
it’s at a summit: all else is
pyramidically inclined:
and there it sits. I tell you this:
I loathe the academic mind.

It stands in gentle emphasis
of a post-post-doctoral gown,
and nods, and blows itself a kiss;
and quickly sits; for it must drown,
were that frail footing once to miss,
and slither and sink into a blind
uneducated dim abyss.
I loathe the academic mind.

It gleams in mental avarice,
and dreams of a philosopher’s crown;
it sits bemused in ignorant bliss;
it is not emperor but clown;
for each don dons an artifice
to hide from life (as if confined
within a snug parenthesis).
I loathe the academic mind.

Reader, this aint “analysis” –
but a dig of a poetic kind
to give vent to a prejudice.
I loathe the academic mind.

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