Doctors of Nada

I did so dearly want to study the words

But science was “where the money lived”

So I diligently memorized

Method scientific

Mastered the mean, median and mode

Completing the curriculum

While living as pauper

At last, I turned the tassle on my cap

So that it would hang over my heart

Then I turned on my heel and left

To a life filled with

Scratching, clawing, climbing a

Corporate ladder made slippery

By the slime of all the slugs and eels

That had slithered upward before me

I gripped, I fought, reaching for the upper rungs (and hung and hung)

On for dear life

Now after eons

I’ve returned to the hallowed halls of learning

Ivy covered brick walls

Musty mausoleums for the living

Where dust and ideas lie idle on the floor

Waiting for the janitor to come sweep them away

Others who profess treat me with disdain

As the undereducated, unimportant impostor

Without a degree of the proper elevation

Those whose divine right is

Self proclaimed

Academia’s royal line

Doctors of nada, zip, zilch

Snobby snots

Bookish robots

Do not possess

Original thoughts

I loathe their hubristic vanity

As I wrestle with the words beloved

(Which usually pin me to the mat)

God’s gift to me of a poet’s soul

Has saved my very sanity