THE LOVE SONG OF J. ARTHUR NICKLES

      Gaudeamus igitur, Juvenes dum sumus
      Post jucandum juventutem, Post molestam senectutem,
      Nos habebit humus.

Let's get out of here, you and I
When the evening is plastered against the sky
Like a frat boy on his ninth at Harry's
Let us go, through certain one-way streets
To find formica seats
on restless nights in Triple XXX
Where we sit perusing texts.
Streets that wind like a professor's arguement
On authorial intent
To overwhelm you not to question
Oh, do not ask "But Is It Art?"
That's not how professors start.


In the room the T.A.'s come and go
Talking of Michel Foucault.

And indeed there won't be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
There won't be time
To prepare a talk on Keats for PhD's that you meet
There will be time to murder, not create
Slicing to bits the works of other hands
When four twenty-page papers are dropped upon your plate
Time to pick up all the jargon so you know what to say
Time for absolute decisions,
But no time for revisions
Before the next issue of the PMLA.

In the room the T.A.'s come and go
Talking of Michel Foucault.


And indeed there won't be time
To wonder "Do I dare" and "Do I dare?"
Time to treat my students with a modicum of care
And realize what potential for imagination might be there.
[They will say: He hasn't published in an age."]
My pipe and my tweed jacket with the patches colored beige
My black turtleneck which makes me look like some medieval mage
[They will say: "But he hasn't published in an age."

Do I dare
Disturb the University?

For I have known them already, read them all:
Have studied evenings, mornings, afternoons,
Listened to lectures stirring coffee spoons
Discussed "As I Lay Dying" by Bill Faul-
Kner in terms of imagery of the womb.
So how should I  presume?

.................................


I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Critic read my stuff, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the thesis and the prelims and the orals,
After publishing a work that garnered highest laurels
To acclaim at all the conferences
Which spearheaded a crusade
Everyone debating just what I mean
While overhead transparencies throw patterns on a screen
Would it have been worthwhile
If I, speaking at the back of a crowded hall,
Should say, "That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all."

No! I am not Hugh Kenner, nor was meant to be
Am an assistant prof, one that will do
To grade a couple papers, write an article or two
In some journal most obscure, penning mysteries on the side,
Always free with office hours, quite gentle when I chide,
Pedantic yet still "with it", model citizen beside
Who will get tenure, then won't know what to do.

I grow old... I grow old...
More students than expected have enrolled.

Shall I cancel all my classes? Admit that I can't teach?
I shall go on sabbatical, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the Muses singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding Byron and Shelley
While I remain embittered Polidori
Knowing I can never catch my quarry.

We have lingered in the groves of Academe
And think we'll know the answers by and by
Till emeritus is granted, and we die.


Copyright 1993 c
by John A. Nickles.  All rights reserved.