Academics

In two-hundred-and-fifty years, when I am famous

My writings will be recovered, with a subtle technology

And academics will convene conferences, to explain my work.

They will say, from the podium: Honoured colleagues…

I would like to suggest that he had a mother-fixation

And never left the womb—yet he also suffered from...

A father-complex, thought he was a god (a delusion).

Further, says the next academician, My paper finds…

He was a fascist, but also a communist—yet with…

Staunch liberal convictions. It’s quite clear, all here

In the documents I studied for my PhD.

Another man stands up and says, He was a Christian

Who attended Mosque—and followed the Buddha way

Yet his writings suggest he was a crypto-Jew too.

His old supervisor says, “He’ll go far in the academy.”

A nervous man from Oxford stands up and says…

He was an active homosexual, who had ten children

And a mistress. He was loyal to his wife, but gender

Polymorphous—a heteronormative person, in a dress.

A final man rises to complain that his colleagues…

Have abandoned the Harvard system of reference…

So all the papers should be rewritten to fit with…

International standards of academic excellence…

“It was a fruitful discussion,” says one academic

Which is what they say as an empty pleasantry

To indicate that no progress was made but…

That the requirements for the degree were satisfied.

Which was fortunate, because the conference...

is in Moscow this year, the vodka is excellent

And the company warm, a real symposium

With a generous per diem from the Institute.

And it was only when they were drunk that…

The academicians forgot to lie and started…

To say what they really thought about the…

Documents at hand, yet next day they had…

To report for the final session, with a headache

To hear how, through AI-enhanced polysemy

A fast-track researcher, has determined that…

He was a black lesbian, and when he said “Jew”

he meant “white Christian”, to avoid persecution

—by Trump.