My Monicker Poem by jackilton peachum

MY MONICKER

Per'fessor, they called me, young in them days--
on the road or leaning over a barrel-fire,
they'll be smilin' back at me:

a figure of some humor,
this critter from another world,
foreign to them as house and wife or new clothes.

"He does not work well with others, "
says Sylvia Sidney, referencing Beetleguice--
I, meanwhile, sipping coffee from a tin cup,

talked to them about French art, Aesthetics,
giving them Socrates, Plato, a few lines of Omar Khayyam,
they nodding politely, pretending they understood

--or even cared-- and me, I comprehended
the knowledge gained in distance.` `