The Swan Song of Norman J. Winthrop

Let us see then, you & I,
how we'll make our students cry
like an abscessed tooth sans Novocain.
Let's dissect the alternating rhyme,
considered innovative in its time,
of a repetitive refrain—
but let's not look for explanation.
Consider free association.

In the classroom
students nod & snore,
finding my text a mindless bore.

How then can I express my pain,
quoting Roethke's "Elegy for Jane"
to nudge the mockingbirds out of sleep?
They must wonder if I sometimes weep.
How can I hold my textbook high
explaining lie & lay & lie?
They must watch the second-finger sweep.
How should I eulogize Ancient Rome?
How analyze a modern poem?

O, I recognize the hands, never raised,
see my colleagues paid & praised,
ask all my questions to the wall,
& wait & linger on & explicate.
I consider all I've seen
before I wipe my glasses clean.

I stand alone like a transgressor,
pale grey-coated professor,
before a chalk-drawn slate of lines & curves.
A diagram of broken words & nerves.

In the room,
my students nod & snore,
dreaming escape & little more,
throwing butt-ends upon the floor,
& whom should I ignore?

Shall I say no smoking is allowed,
& contemplate the rising cloud?
Shall I fade off in despair...
& how should any care?

I should have been a poet, writing
verse for prominent magazines...

O would it have been worth my time,
after the drama, poetry & prose,
after calling on those in the farthest rows,
if after an hour-long discussion,
I'd caused an inner repercussion?
Would it have altered very much
if after lecturing & such,
if after the grammar & the usage,
a term of scarcely verbal mucilage,
if one youth, catching on,
would raise a point to prove me wrong?

I, who am no miglior fabbro,
will plainly tell you so
without a trip to hell & back.
I bid all public school poets go pack.
Let us haunt the campus pubs & curse
the mythos-makers of modern verse;
we'll drink like academics, till we drown,
& graduate to dreams of cap & gown.

© O. Possum