Best Doctoral Poems
Part Two
Older in age
younger in growth
still heeding His Master’s Voice
the Great swirling dark illiterate masses
led by less than nought point nought nought nought nought nought nought nought to the power of 32
who prefer nukes for toys
at the cost of common everyday joys
These that hanker after the departed master’s pat on the back
for the Man-Booker
for the National Book Award
for the Fullbright
for the Visiting Professorship and/or IIAS Fellowship
for the Ivy League-Oxbridge doctoral degree
for in short the Master’s pedigree-conferring embrace
These who do not know
do not want to know
do not wish to know
will not know
if there’s a difference
between a Genji Monogatari or the Monkey
between a Sakuntala or the Gitanjali
between a poem and a public parade
These that will *******ons of postcolonial muck
And oblige their students to gorge every bit with spit
Just to stamp careers with their brainprints
These that will turn their coat
turn their tongue
turn their souls
for a Nobel
These that preen strut pout pose pretend
mouth ready to swill the millesium
this bouquet mind you titillates the left corner of the upper palate
like a petal unfolding in spring from a hymen
the dark obedient swirling masses lie dumb night after never-ending night
to ebola and dingue and chikungunya swill water
shrivelling their cramped contorted viscera
(Continued in Part Two - 2)
emergency room
such doctoral confusion
medication goof
© Joseph S. Spence, Sr., (Epulaeryu Master) 4/21/08
All Rights Reserved, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Senior Advisor, to Founder of Motivational Strips
Ambassador De Literature
Noble Star of Literature 2018
Living Legend of the 21st Century
Pentasiv B World Friendship Poetry Featured Poet 2019
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY : LXXIV
IF ever I had a country proud of its sacred Soul Patrie
And if ever by a long shot I was nominated - not spuriously elected - Chef Ministre d'Etat
Plenipotentiary
The first thing I'd do is to give the Minister of Justice the sack in a hurry
I'll then take over his post and issue a long awaited (you'll agree) and needed decree
That henceforth any razor-sharp lawyer and his erudite team appointed by a client for a
very very high fee
To defend protect and facilitate the " escape " of any known criminal whose ill-gotten
gains burst bank-vaults to a brain-numbing degree
That the lawyer and his team be given the DOUBLE of the sentence meted out to the
criminal and be put away minus their licences to practise LAW in an Alcatraz-like
penitentiary
And this even if I never ever had no country to call my own with or without any patrimony
(The late eminent Vietnamese-French lawyer, Maître JACQUES VERGES, renowned for among other feats the defence of KLAUS BARBIE, the NAZI " chief " under the French Vichy regime, was also the Secrétaire de la Conférence des Avocats/Examiner for those wishing to practise law in France. And yet, in a case where I was concerned with revolting Master's and Doctoral students at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University, he subtly had my case scuttled to prop up mainly Muslim and African-origin students - openly backed by JAMES BALDWIN - who objected vehemently to being taught, besides numerous other Commonwealth authors, V. S. NAIPAUL's The Guerillas, together with Eva Peron and The Killings in Trinidad, students who also took exception to any comparison, by way of structural influence, of WOLE SOYINKA's The Road, with Greek tragedies.)
© T. Wignesan - Paris, March 8, 2019
Villanelle: Cowered crushed cramped cold in the pit of our stomachs
Cowered crushed cramped cold in the pit of our stomachs
We drag our ego thrones saddled on stooping lean backs
Fiendish liege Lords’ furnace mouths whiplash at run amoks
None can bear the thought shrunken image left on dry docks
Unconsoled by doctoral degrees or skills won on bent backs
Cowered crushed cramped cold in the pit of our stomachs
The terrifying shame of being left to rot on torrid tarmacs
The will to keep going in the face of spites and silly smacks
Fiendish liege Lords’ furnace mouths whiplash at run amoks
Les mille vices and pin-pricks we put up with as decoy ducks
While His Majesty Liege Ego rides in pomp pitfalls on tracks
Cowered crushed cramped cold in the pit of our stomachs
All mere paying passengers grovelling on groaning stomachs
No tenant fit to reign in his own fiefdom his baggage unpacks
Fiendish liege Lords’ furnace mouths whiplash at run amoks
He who runs not with hares but howls with hounding packs
Is he content to walk straight smile strung on lips and locks
Cowered crushed cramped cold in the pit of our stomachs
Fiendish liege Lords’ furnace mouths whiplash at run amoks
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
A mechanism of mind in the inner rune as classicism is twined a spinner rocks Just a song and a half and a doggerel Uhh! And the gong bands laugh in paean Blocks are only doctoral constitutionally when measuring the staff of a rhyme Wind chimes intrinsically with innermore then breaths of pleasure become synergistic An inborn internal fortitude with box inclosed The grave epitaph reads deeply innate inside the confines of a heart beat
Staking Claims: For Yucatec Maya & Native Peoples
The stones of the desert cry with me
They are brothers and sisters, but no bloody kin
New hearts see just cold rocks … no warmth or charity …
Might you see how we worship gods in them?
The gods themselves are dead, buried in hopeless holes
They died when we could not stop the excesses of each Columbus
Who brought a brutal hunger for gold and souls
Then bone and marrow fell within Columbus’ compass
The trees and tree stumps of the Yucatan
Hold deep scars and memories in their bosoms
The limestone cries quietly for the sons of Chillam Balam
Their tears yielding tomorrow’s blossoms
For even grasses, herbs, insects … know
That they too will be sucked, one after another
Away from the withering, wrinkled body of our Mother
Through a gaping hole in the atmosphere
All earth cries with the sun and stone worshippers
The blackened peasant clasps his callused hands
With those last calories from a breakfast of peppers
Unaware that his gods died hopelessly condemned
The desert explodes into those oases
Where infatuated faith still yields cool, delicious flesh
And forgiving flowers among the spikes in the cactus:
The desert and stones are gentler than Columbus
©Dr. A. S. Deo, 500 Years after Columbus, circa 1996.
BACKGROUND NOTE OF HORRORS:
(Written in the 1990s. Blood and tears are part of the story, not only for Native Peoples like the Maya of the Yucatan, but for my wife and daughters, too. A Sri Lankan professor allied with my Promoter/Chairman of my doctoral committee, objected to my politics outside of the classroom. They used the clout of the legal department at my campus, The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to shut me up and deny my degree. They failed, thanks to my “cold stone gods” and Jesus. I defended my thesis, successfully, on 1 May 1995 and was back working in my native South Africa in June 1995! Soon I was hired by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria, when Nelson Mandela was President. He retired in 1998. Sadly, little changed in the then DFA at the Union Buildings, and poor of South Africa … and across the globe, continue to get false hope & promises from Liberals, Conservatives, Blacks & Whites. Jesus alone will speak truth to you, about EVERYTHING. Check a Bible near you, start with John's Book)
It’s hard to meet someone serious at college. Everyone’s busy,
self-centeredly grinding away at their dreams. So much so that
people tell you to not even try (especially as a freshman).
I was mostly at ease with myself—as a freshman. I had an
excellent skincare routine—it was downright luxuriant,
and it kept me going, through that romantically lonely year.
But we humans hope—we buy lotto tickets to dream on—though we know the awful math. We Gen Z’s seem to have our own unique brand of loneliness, born of covid and Internet-age experience.
My romantic expectations, sophomore year, were low—ok, unmeasurable.
Looking around was depressing. There were socially awkward STEM majors, jocks, frat men (sure the world’s laid-out just for them) and ‘CSOM Bros" (business majors more interested in parlaying my Grandmère’s money than me) and the elusive, emotionally reserved, ‘regular guys.’
But the unexpected can happen. We all know how crowded campus coffee shops are—the students move in and out in tides as noisy as the real, salty ocean. And then there you were, a rumpled, 25-year-old doctoral student—from another world—asking to share my table.
The loudest thing in that room was your sense of stillness. You seemed to be a new, and distinct species, and as we talked, you seemed to somehow smooth my anxious edges. After a few meets, the thought, ‘I really like this guy,’ seemed to have its own gravity.
We somehow managed to thread the ‘too busy to care’ dynamic, and as time went by, you helped me channel my absurd, fiery, pastel-painted, first-love, early-twenty girlhood heat into something longer lasting, deep and authentic. Congratulations! It’s been two years.
Separating now, would be like removing the salt from the sea.
.
.
Songs for this:
Playing House by Kudu
So Much Mine by The Story
After waiting for long time,
Finally I have collected.
My original degree certificate,
Smile floats on face more.
Being Doctor of Philosophy,
In Business Administration
I was waiting for this convocation
Finally this arrived with joy.
Passing through time of research,
Investing mind's attention,
Affection grew for Business Studies,
Process was completed by efforts.
Spirituality serves human resources,
Being spiritual we grow positively,
Rectifying organizational attitudes,
Employees tolerate pressure.
Now in journey of higher degree,
I am busy in Post-Doctoral research,
Already going to complete one year,
I hope to become Doctor of Literature.
By his mercy I have completed,
Beloved father of heaven is graceful,
God shows me destination, I proceed,
I feel his presence in my mind.
By his command in inner heart,
I feel emotion and love to serve,
This degree of Doctor of Philosophy
I dedicate to God, I nod in his lotus feet.
© Pintu Mahakul, 10, March 2017. All rights reserved.
Tony Kushner wrote plays as a telephone operator,
Kafka wrote stories at night after working as an insurance adjuster,
Grisham penned court room dramas religiously for three years before
being published.
These playwrights and novelists and poets,
Lived a dual existence-
By day,
They lived an ordinary existence,
Maintaining a 9-5 or overnight shifts
While balancing obligations like
family, grocery shopping, taxes, rent or mortgage
friends, bills, lovers
At night,
Undercover,
In their precious time-
They were on a lonely, thankless journey,
Only their desk, the lamp and their pen and paper/typewriter/computer
as company,
Communing with their muse,
Creating, Rewriting, editing, repeat
Telling stories for the mere pleasure, to satisfy an
Incurable hunger for their words, thoughts, voices
To be expressed, considered, read,
Without the guarantee of money, fame, recognition or success..
I remember them when verse rushes through my mind
like an angry, swollen April river,
That I forget the words as quickly as I conceive them,
or I compose long winded poems
with no direction, shape or grace.
I remember them when procrastination and writer’s block
Prevents me from writing for days, months or years,
or when I hear that my high school nemesis is a doctoral
Candidate in poetry
I remember and thank them for giving my inspiration
To continue.
I have a worthy goal
I pine to be a fossil
on permanent display
in some future museum
All it takes
is the proper soil
in which to reside
for years and years
of unflinching patience
And then a bit of luck
when a doctoral student
stumbles across my remains
and finds the subject
for her dissertation
Scientist will argue
over what it all means
and I will live on in death
as a smiling toothy enigma
Lost in a world that seems foreign to me,
this child standing here called me Grandpa
I don't recognize her, how can that be,?
These people here in uniforms call me Gene,
they tell me that my family is here today, but I'm
Lost in a world that seems foreign to me,
I look out my window, at a bird in a tree,
it's name is something, I don't recall
I don't recognize her, how can that be, ?
I feel trapped in this room, I wish to be free,
I don't remember when was the last time I ate
Lost in a world that seems foreign to me,
Someone just showed me a picture of a lady named Dee,
She said, she was my wife for forty years
I don't recognize her, how can that be,?
This lady says I was a surgeon, with a Doctoral degree,
She says Dad please, don't you remember?
Lost in a world that seems foreign to me,
I don't recognize her, How can that be?
Elegy on the Death of Vicente Aleixandre, Translation of Carlos Bousono’s poem : Elegia en la muerte de Vicente Aleixandre
(Born in 1923, Carlos Bousono, a renowned prize-winning Spanish poet and eminent theoretician on the aesthetics of poetry, held the Chair of Stylistics at the Central (Complutense) University of Madrid. ; later as E-meritus.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation, in 1950, on the poetry of Vicente Aleixandre, the recepient of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Literature. It is evident, he witnessed the Nobel laureate’s passing in 1984. Bousono’s every lecture, delivered off the cuff, earned him an indomitabe world-wide reputation. T. Wignesan)
In Death
Eyes that kept looking
so full of pain
on the last day, hardly moments
before dying,
and from the deathbed
he recalled in sadness,
from far away, very far away though somewhat hazily,
those days with his friends,
out there in the distance
of his childhood,
having himself a great time,
life even then being immortal,
they (may have) roamed through small orchards, or through the
pinewood, or the soaring heights
bathed palpitatingly in the light.
Then to run, concealing themselves,
in the rear of some thickets, awhile :
why were they not being called to
yet from the house.
A little later, a little later feeling really lonesome
for the very last time, and that would be it.
And when they put
a crown on his head as on the king of the world
the day when it all came to pass
the king* had reigned for seven years,
seven years as lord
over everyone in the universe : the air, the sea.
He breathed. He looked tired
and the impossibility. Life, the crown,
painted cardboard, feeling yet happy,
later in love, in the company
of those slinging shots, such happiness. Years without
knowing doubt, and all that was
just an instant so lonely,
bitter grief
real.
And now the tears –
he who never cried – filled his eyes,
sliding down ever so slowly
over his pale cheeks,
soaking the skin,
the mouth,
and continued sliding
even though he was already dead.
The tears lasted longer
than his sorrow-laden eyes.
Much longer
than his own pain.
• Probably a reference to King Juan Carlos of the House of Bourbon.
© T. Wignesan – Patis, 2013
Baby Thoughts
Hugs are babies’ first official language
Followed by triangles, circles, with assorted symbols
Infants pay special attention to white pillows and quilts
Sleep is always on their minds
Flowing over yellow ribbons of light and energy
Babies contemplate squares and rectangles lifted from the fog
They think about animals as fury toys and perceive them thusly
Images come slowly and they focus on shiny things
They feel their tiny fingers and toes to stay in touch
Letters and numbers are foreign to them now
Yet they understand some things about them in their world
Pink and white dreams of billowy clouds bounce by
They think to take this ride a lot
Streams of life with limited visibility color in the blurs
Shapes of things to come take form in these meanderings
They know two mountains warm with riches wait for them
Breasts filled with vitamins and milk
They cling to these mounds for nourishment
They rest their heads and think goo goo gaa gaa
It is the foundation of a doctoral dissertation later in life
While mothers voice flows over them like thick warm honey
Babies think of deeper sleep
Mach my words, that time travel aye
foresee (rather than being
at a stand still, nee frozen
analogous to cry
oh ja hen nicks, or more particularly
going backwards)
this chap doth espy
great breakthroughs,
asper similar advances this guy
i.e. myself witnesses quantum leaps I
learn (reading The University Of Penn Gazette)
the Burmese doctoral
engineering student Kai
Sir Von Wilhelm Harris
made profound advances within
advanced combined research
laboratory of rocket surgery
and brain science set my
mouth ajar
(with rivulets of drool spilling forth)
constructing a simple
to assemble gizmo (avail able
common household materials
rendered unto YouTube), and/or Cable
Comcast, Fios, Infosys, et cetera
which accidental discovery
automatically codified feign
top secret "FAKE" news to enable
boot (simply for formality sake)
code named Clark Gable
yet in reality (a faux veil of secrecy)
to con Vince sing lee
foster an inimitable
mystique, button truth
for general public to unzip noble
no red bull) knowable
handy escape to past or future
and essentially unlocked laudable
simple "household solution"
to become the latest craze
(synonymous with an opiate - manageable
minus addiction, conviction,
and excruciation viz zit operable
via needle marks of the masses
within a fortnight necessary
supplies sans quantifiable
while Das Donald Trump
could enact legislation satisfiable
knowing majority being
totally tubularly oblivious unalterable
measures permanently infringing on inalienable
rights such as life, liberty
and the pursuit of winnable pacification.
Too many think that they are God
Too many think that they know God
Too many think that they see God
Too many talk like they know God
Too many sins
Too many Satans
Too many prosecutors
Too many executors
Too many judges
Too many smudges
Too many think that they are right
Too many, for the wrong reasons, fight
Like there is no tomorrow
What a shame! What a sorrow!
Too many think that they know more than they know
Thank God, they can barely see the peacock and the crow
In front of their nose. The dagger behind the head is not
Under the radar. The moon sees everything. The sun is hot
For countless unexplained reasons
Both have an innocuous impact on the seasons
Too many false geniuses
To many mad scientists
Too many strange analysts
With worthless doctoral degrees
Human being is a thinking piece of meat
With unusual behaviors that meet
No coherent criterion, and at times violate
Rules, laws, theorems and the advices of the prelate.
Too many think that they are God
And few are willing to obey the commandments
Too many think that they know God
And few honestly believe in the testaments
Too many think that they know God
And they die and disappear like the smoker's puff
Too many behave like they know God
Think about the whole thing: honestly, this is playing bluff.
Copyright © April 2012, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several books of poetry.