A candid commencement address. For once

Here’s my advice, young folks – let’s cut the shit –
Have all the sex you can, and lavish it 
On anybody handy: Woman, man, 
Or beast, or hand: have all the sex you can. 
I peer above my lectern, back you stare: 
Lithe bodies in your hundreds, glossy hair
And lots of it; even your awful gown
And cap, still worse, can’t keep my boner down. 

I hope you’ve spent your four years well, got laid
Five times a day. Your debts won’t be repaid, 
But you’ll have this: 
	
	“Oh, Thunder Thighs, that chick, 
You know, from Great Neck: Put the thic in thicc. 
I lost a week between her legs, and still
Count it well lost from Rousseau’s General Will
In that week’s Great Book. Weirdly, though, the phrase
Always brings her to mind. Those seven days
Anyone would have willed who was alive;
Never a muff more dive-able to dive.”

But now you’ll have a job. I say again:
Bet against grave, and grave will always win: 
Work less, fuck more. I can’t stress this too strongly:
This is your time: young, horny, cute, and wrongly
Attracted, now and then, but take the plunge; 
The grope, the clumsy kiss, the fumbling lunge
Into the knickers. 
	No, of course we know, is no;
Don’t persevere. Back to the draw you go
And better luck. You’ll find someone more willing,
And here’s my wish for you: Be it as thrilling 
As in your dreams or fancies. When it’s good
It’s very good indeed, and sure, it should
Always be good, but won’t. Get used to that. 

Ah. I see the policeman with his hat -- 
High-peaked, hard-brimmed – approaches to restore
Decent hypocrisy. I’ll say no more. 
It’s true I had a tot or two before. 
Orating Under th’Influence, or OUI: 
It’s certainly the proper charge for me. 

So fair cop, copper, and I won’t resist. 
Take me stout constable, and don’t desist
From your corrections. Quite a splendid truncheon
Hangs from your…  belt. And after: how ‘bout luncheon? 

2 thoughts on “A candid commencement address. For once

  1. “when would you…have the found the ground of study’s excellence without the beauty of a woman’s face?” Berowne, LLL

    we learn in school how to be right, how to give the correct answer, in competition with our peers. but curiosity is a form of eros. we go to school to have our natural desires, social, intellectual, biological, crushed by a lengthy initiation ritual wherein the goal is for a child to get gold stars and letters added beside one’s name for the ability to parrot the language of adults in exchange for something not real called money. what does one get for allowing oneself or even seeking to be hit by “the blind boy’s butt shaft”?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4P4ln781D0
    as enjoyable as this song is, it is they, not we, that have taught us chemistry, so we must, as the bard says somewhere, learn to like to love. James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time,” says something like Americans are too anti-pleasure to be anti-sex. He’s right, despite the obese, meth-addled appearances.

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