I am the first to admit
That my work may be stilted
My knowledge limited
And prose a bit wilted.
My purpose in coming
To the halls of St. John's
Was to flesh out such failings --
To unshackle my bonds!
I started my task
By doing the reading
By talking and listening
And writing and meeting.
At the mid-term conference
Remarks were made
That favorably showed
I had made the grade.
But lo and behold!
The first day of Spring term,
A call from the office and a
"Please don't return!"
I suspected what happened --
I thought I'd been bushwhacked
By a tutor with tenure
And a hot randy member.
This tutor was "gay" --
He was quite proud of the fact.
Innuendos in class
Showed clearly his tact.
The tutor grew fonder
Of a classmate buddy
And he approached him to see
If he might fondle his ruddy.
After being rebuffed
In no uncertain terms,
This tutor turned as spiteful
As deadly ass germs.
In class and in papers
His remarks made to me
Were demeaning and crass --
A sort of fiddle-dee-dee!
I formerly approached him
With honest intent
For help with my studies
To avoid time misspent.
But instead, I found,
I got stabbed in the back --
I got only dejection
From this sodomite hack.
Meanwhile, a second tutor
Took offense -- got all uptight
During an open discussion
Of Jacob's jewiness one night.
The political incorrectness
Of the statement I uttered
Horrified the tutor
While classmates shuddered.
I heard an unfounded rumor
Right after that, about
Me, the "anti-Semite bigot"
Spread by some unknown cat.
Alas! It made sense
When I looked at my grades --
They'd been grinding their axes
All during the classes.
So I went to the Director
Of Graduate Studies
To say I'd been wronged by these
Two butt-head "buddies."
I had no reason to think
She would not intervene.
(Instead she did something
"In-between.")
She talked to these tutors
(At least that's what she tells me)
And agreed that they acted
Perfectly wonderfully.
The remedy offered was
To let me stay, if I would
Rewrite the precept and
Retake the class -- but in the "St. John's way."
I struggled to get her to
Reflect on the effect,
But instead she applied
A benign neglect.
My letters to her
Asked for students to check
The findings, and her reply
To me was a stonewalling silence.
Then lo and behold!
I went to President Agresto
Who admitted, like her,
The gay tutor was pesto.
I presented my findings
And asked for relief
He promised to check it
(He seemed to agree with my beef).
The next day he called me
And in a tone not-so-mellow
He chastised my work
And called me a "Jesuitical fellow."
I then got a letter
Which had long been awaited
From the director, who
Now must have felt vindicated.
She twisted the knife
And repeated her offer
To let my poor soul remain
(As their court jester pauper).
I've been thinking it over
And over and over
And I've made up my mind
To let them all know --
If I could learn by aping words
Of the Great Western Way
Be not controversial
But be petty and gay,
I would not only go there
To learn but to teach
For it seems that rewards
Come to those who can leach
The great truths of time from
Those grand, noble works, while
Thinking you a "cretin" or "ninny"
And all students jerks.
Those whose vocation in life
Is to wrestle with words
To wrangle and wallow
Like well-cared-for birds,
Who delight when another
Gets lost in the battle
Of learning detail
That's so important to rattle.
When in my mind's eye
The search for the truth
Is not gained from nitpicking
Or from being uncouth,
But attempting to master
The great books of time
By trying and trying
To make of them mine.
Something within them
Deserves our attention
And something outside them
Is more than pretension.
It's the hard-won fighting
In life's muddy trenches that
Allows the mind to discover
A learning that quenches.
It's praised highly in books,
Learning's virtue and grandeur
And it's not off the mark
Whatever your stature.
But I'd rather go it alone
Through the bloat and the blather
Than try again to swim in this rank
Cesspool of soulless prattle.
May 25, 1993
Santa Fe, NM
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