Posted in Rituals

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Posted on by tq1695

It was an elite course – almost
if medicine and IT were excluded
just 15 of us in total, a sort of brotherhood
and sort of sisterhood if the two women were included
except,
contradicting the zeitgeist neither seemed
interested or impressed with feminism
preferring the company of their classmates to each other.
So, it was a kind of brotherhood with two female members
a sort of brotherhood –
with incessant demands, insane workloads,
near impossibility catalysed cooperation–
ideas, proofreading, encouragement
a sort of academic brotherhood except for Paul
who was rather pedantic at seminars
often focusing on minor flaws
and on occasions illuminating errors not tutor detected.

I gritted my teeth after he’d flossed me and growled to a classmate
“ why does he do that – some petty satisfaction,”
the listener, much wiser said
top student is a horse race which most here could win
so, when speed is equal,
running interference is performance enhancing.

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.