For Dr. Ursus - Either Or? Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

He pointed to your brilliant marks
and killed the just emerging sparks
of what, in other, better times
could have produced some pleasant rhymes.
That counsellor, you know it now
with bovine brain, that of a cow
was instrumental in the death
of infantile poetic breath!
I note, in this, your brief account
that God himself gave, pound for pound
what He Himself would call The Gift
to you, though someone did get miffed,
which I (of kindred spirit) see-
a badly genuflected knee.
I am, from what you say, convinced
that he, the counsellor who minced
his words pretending genuine kindness
was facing, really, ego blindness.
He sat, without a useful skill
day in day out, without the thrill
of talent, gifts or intellect,
though compensated to detect
what made those pimply students tick.
With you, he tried to pull the wick
out from your candle out of spite
he could not stand another light
to pass his desk and then succeed
while he was stuck, a lowly weed
inside his basement closet rooms.
Some days he wished for giant brooms
to sweep all promises to hell
and find himself a bagatelle
from which he'd leisurely create
a work to change his sorry state.
Surely, he reasoned, there must be
for anyone a proper key
to open simple doors and portals,
God would have loved his little mortals
or could it be that He was keen
to have another Nazarene?

He was not sure, nor could he judge
the truth of it. He could not budge
from his low station in a life
that had bestowed on him a wife
who nagged him morning noon and night
with words like 'lazy', 'not-to-bright'.
So, nothing more of this adviser!
You Doc, have risen like the Kaiser
and ought to, this is common sense,
look at your own head through the lens,
rose-coloured as it well may be.
This will allow you to, like me
turn syllables to wondrous words
which rise, like happy little birds
and roam through cirrus clouds and lands
where children play while holding hands
until they grow too soon to face
the madness of the human race.
I wonder, do you get my drift?
Might there be value in the gift
to put to paper from within
a subtle taste of Lohengrin?
Well I shall close now, lest the powers
delet me as I write for hours.
I wanted you to understand
that man is shackled to the bland
to sweat and blood and salty tears,
to obligations in arrears,
and that some clever writing will
keep many folks from getting ill.
So while our minds, with patience, weave
new verses destined for our sleeve
we have a remedy to use:
Its smile will drive away the blues.
Thus, Medicine and Poetry
two are for you and both for me.
Good Heavens, this must be the end
and will you answer me, my friend?


Note:

This was in response to a colleague who found, much later in life,
that the advice of his counsellor in school to choose Medicine
rather than writing, had been wrong. He now does both.