University Leisure Seizure or That’s My Dunce Cap

Done my life of earning wages, I thought to rest by turning pages

Of the versifying sages whose lyrics I’d found appealing;

But such seeking hedonistic, ’twas most unrealistic

To think this simplistic foray wouldn’t start my senses reeling.

I wished to give my brain a rest, and to this I will attest

I felt that selfsame brain oppressed now being forced to ponder life;

If I’d wanted great vexation, I’d have picked my own contemplations

and enjoyed endless abnegation by taking on a wife.

Why must poems have some meaning, must I reason out a gleaning

Metaphorical images teeming from double-meanings vasty pit;

All poets do is cause me grief, befuddle me beyond belief

To wise their meaning even though it’s otherwise there writ.

What is examination, but some school’s glorification

I owe them no dedication, I’d rather pour myself a drink;

I have no use for words symbolical, less for data mathematical

And it’s not unreasonable to say the animal sciences stink.

I have since absorbed mine curriculum, the quadrivium, the trivium

And now I absorb Christendom for in learning I’ve learned nothing;

I have touched all that is knowable, discoverable, ascertainable

Yet the only thing retainable is the truth I’m now admitting.

That I soon began to speculate, were I to simply deviate

I’d be cultivated, educated and be damned a scholar’s weight;

Not learned in the usual school, for mine is like to that of fools

Where the rest of the talking monkeys and I still puzzle over tools.

Max S