Flexible

It was a select course
hard to get into and
harder to get out of –
sort of academic Hotel California
but without the frisson, adventure ….. and cocaine.
A quartet of professors rotated
incessantly teaching, setting assignments, grading –
critique and criticism.
Occasionally a guest lecturer stirred the homogeneity
lightening the tedium – or increasing.

Even on a warm spring day he arrived in topcoat
and three-piece suit.
He was accompanied by a briefcase
which remained unopened
waved aside fulsome introductions with
“ litigation is the cloaca of law
where it goes when all other processes are finished –
excreta ” to the arrayed blank faces.

His address was that of a barrister to a jury
a blend of pathos, humour, sarcasm, fact and emotion
ending with
“ to some the coastline of New Zealand begins atop the highest peak
to others at the outer edge of the 200 mile exclusive economic zone,”
for $500 an hour I’m prepared either argue case.

Then collecting briefcase and coat
he was gone,
without pause or farewell.