Academic Gatekeeper

Academic gatekeeper

Sits within her office

An important title

Hangs upon her door

Half opened

Waiting for the next naïve student

To stumble through the threshold

Her lair is a simple chair

In front of her well ordered desk

Her hair is hung in gray curls

Like hydra's head of snakes

She seems permanently seated

Behind her executive desk

Her dwelling place and the center of her existence

Her secretary feeds her coffee and pastries on demand

Authoritative maxims and commands

Roll dryly from her tongue

And, pressed between thin lips

Manage to eject out like smoke rings

The young student is an innocent sacrifice

Unwitting of the ways of the world

But a youth full of dreams and desires

Dashed like pumpkins on the road

His intelligence turned upon itself

He casts for some larger reason in her words

All quite rational and sensible sounding

And yet completely off the mark

The Great Wall Revisited

Trails in the Snow

1991-1993