Villanelle: Whose condition is the worst everyone asks, for John McCormick (poem) by T. Wignesan on AuthorsDen

Villanelle: Whose condition is the worst everyone asks, for John McCormick
by T. Wignesan → (All Poetry by T. Wignesan)
Tuesday, February 21, 2023 Rated "G" by the Author.

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Dedicated to Professor John McCormick, Harvard Professor of American Literature, appointed to head the American Studies Department at the Free University of West Berlin in the 19-fifties and whom I got to know and appreciate as a student (cf. relevant parts of my novel: Ice in My Eyes, Smoke in Yours). Till this day I regret not having accepted his generous offer of help to bail me out of an insufferable and manic situation of obfuscation engendered by certain highly powerful academic women with inestimable banking connections. Moral: Accepting help from sources without strings attached can change your life forever for the better... [The last time I spoke to Prof. McCormick was in the U-Bahn/Underground in West-Berlin. He saw me enter the coach, came up to me, and after the usual politenesses, said: "You are a writer. Don't ever let your shadow darken the portals of a university !!!"]
Villanelle: Whose condition is the worst everyone asks T Wignesan Dedicated to Professor John McCormick, Freien Universität, West-Berlin Villanelle: Whose condition is the worst everyone asks Whose condition is the worst everyone asks “Mine!” “Mine!” “Mine!” - everyone’s desperate cry Why the powers that decide wear such sharp tusks Look at the basking billions enjoyng tasks Then watch the hare-lipped cock-eyed shrivelled wretch sigh Whose condition is the worst everyone asks Gypsy dejection makes outcaste maniacs Black film difference opportunities buy Why the powers that decide wear such sharp tusks Must everyone’s fate be owed to dead crime larks Birth time and place do not the living defy Whose condition is the worst everyone asks Who asked to be born let him rip open masks Post-Big Bang soup stray elements unify Why the powers that decide wear such sharp tusks High and low meek and strong beg for the same marks Nothing’s neither here nor there after we die Whose condition is the worst everyone asks Why the powers that decide wear such sharp tusks © T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015

Reviewed by T. Wignesan

Reviewed on February 23, 2023

Hi Guys, you give me goose pimples. No, really, you do. "Ta' veri mooch !" (That's East-London Cockney in the fifties.) I've just added an anecdote on encountering Professor McCormick for the very last time. If you care to, do please take a peek. Thanks a lot. Best. TW

Reviewed by Regis Auffray

You express some sad truths about our world (not just the academic). Thank you for sharing your philosophical point of view. All the best,

Regis. 🙏🦋✍

Reviewed by Ronald Hull

Reviewed on February 22, 2023

Yes, it is really unfortunate when those with power hold it so tightly they have no compassion to understand why someone may be disenfranchised and in need of help to move on. You have me wondering where you would be now had you allowed Prof. McCormick to help you.

I have experienced both, but only in later years. It seemed the more disabled I became, the sharper the teeth were that demanded my blood.

In contrast, I can think of many professors and superiors in industry and academia who valued me for what I was worth and mentored me a great deal. I recall a situation similar to yours where I declined the offer to stay with a man, who within three years after I left him to go back to my alma mater and teach, became vice president of international marketing for GTE and I would've been traveling many countries with him and learning so much more about the world.

Ron

Reviewed by Elisabeth Barstowe

That is a good question. Machiavellian leadership is a thankful research area because of the fact that these personalities are at the top of all organisations where they manipulate and trample on others to look better themselfes. Well written.