motor cycle maintenance

when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
crushed it into because.
(e,e.cummings)

Because & affect:. the age of
reasons why, so it will never
happen again;. so it will happen
again & again, my explanations,
interpretations, assessments &
evaluations: determinations,
validations, self-fulfilling prophecies:

I always get what I prey for,
see what I say; I told you so,
waiting for Godot

Places I would like to go in the
business of hire education and
liberal art , I realize I can’t get
there from here.

Can’t get there from here.
Neither as the crow flies
nor as a roads scholar.

It’s beyond me.

One of my final exam
questions in American Literature:

Look: this course cost you or
someone in your family around,
what? 3 thousand dollars?
Enough to buy a pretty good
motorcycle, cruise the blue
highways and be composing
your own American literature, yes?

The question here is, frankly—
did you get your money’s worth?
Elaborate. Push the question.
Describe your relationship with
this course-in-literature and
with liberal art and your
higher-education going on.
I’m interested.

One of the few English courses I took in
college was taught by Cleanth Brooks,
founder with Robert Penn Warren of the then
fashionable School of New Criticism—a
phenomenological approach to literature for
literature’s sake after generations considered
author and times and practically everything
but mind-on-the-page. “Close Reading,”
they called it.

For his final exam, Brooks gave us 10 questions.
“Write on 2 or 3 or 4, if you like,” he said.

Consider 2 or 3 or 4.
If you like.
Whatever.