Wisdom in Education Volume 9 Issue 1 Article 3 5-1-2019 Betrayals in Academia and a Black Demon from Ephesus Suleman Lazarus Independent Researcher, West Yorkshire, Wakefield, WF2 7AN, UK., suleman.lazarus@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/wie Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons, Poetry Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Lazarus, Suleman (2019) "Betrayals in Academia and a Black Demon from Ephesus," Wisdom in Education: Vol. 9 : Iss. 1 , Article 3. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wisdom in Education by an authorized editor of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@csusb.edu. 1 Lazarus: My doctorate experience Betrayals in Academia and a Black Demon from Ephesus A black demon has arrived on campus. He must be exorcised, "in thy name of Jesus"! A man is a weed, and a man is a crop. A man in an unwanted place is a weed. When the rain of an incident drops, then germinates the revelation crops, the maize of gatekeepers or the weed of intruders. The fraudsters are also in charge of fraud task-force. Rain has fallen into the eyes of a cow, he could only respond by nodding his head. The same driving tutors who filled the fuel tank with water in the dusk, also derided the learner driver on the London Orbital Motorway at dawn. Thundering! Lightning! Rupturing! My eardrums. The sound of a million football hooligans, "drive this damn car goddamnit!" "drive this damn car goddamnit!" "drive this damn car goddamnit!" I'm the foetus in whom dwells the mighty holy spirit. Did you think you could murder my mother in whom I was? Academic midwives, tell me, tell me, tell me now! What is the wisdom in eating the umbilical cord of the unborn? Roasting and eating my cord while I was unborn indeed made me stronger and braver in this wilderness called academia. Did you know a freeborn is not to be pinned down for exorcism? The first exorcist, Ravinda! the great rainmaker, you saw my living crops, but sent a swarm of locusts, in place of the rain. I've also seen the three sacred snakes conjured from your altar to my shelter. I'm the shrine and they've become walking sticks for my chief priests. I thank you! The second exorcist, Lizzy! You deceived even the elect, David and Jonathan. Stopped Lorenzo and Marco from saying "hello". We know the scrotum of the director, Carlos himself, is in your palm. S-q-u-e-e-z-e at will. You squeezed the trigger. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/wie/vol9/iss1/3 2 Wisdom	in	Education,	Vol.	9	[2019],	Iss.	1,	Art.	3 Shooting the power bullet. Everyone took cover. While you sabotaged the blade of my peerless hoe, roasted my seed yams, and called me a lazy man. I thank you! The third exorcist, Monica! the sincere nanny, you ate the breakfast of an orphan, rubbed his lips with its remnant, and because he cried and stammered, you accused him of naughtiness and lying. Alas! The old gold rush, betrayal, is the new data rush in academia. I thank you too! Anger cut down the palm kernels, and fury, his twin brother, picked up all the pieces in a hurry. Scattered spectators are birds from a falling tree, flapping wings, gossip cameras, here and there. My firewood was from an evil forest, just because I gathered the best? Out of frustration, "worthless", my firewood you marked! But pure "gold", the three loupes of the CCJLS* stamped. A hawk picks its prey, other chicks find their way. Footprints of sweet promises, rain washes off sands and memories. What the flakes of snow amounts, the fingers of sun dismounts. An incident unfolds all fingers of a handshake, exposing the contents, real or fake. When shall you see me in me? Probably, a seed of rice among the beach sand. For a cripple, every crossing needs a boat. For a dreamer, wind travels from coast to coast. For a believer, if a yam cannot germinate from its head, it would definitely germinate from its tail. A he-goat at times moves slowly backwards, gathers momentum, surges fiercely to make a great hit. I'm not coming out from the womb late, midwives. I would never be late. It's not late to be reborn *While CCJLS means Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society, in the poem, it particularly refers to this publication: Lazarus, 2018. Published by CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2019 3 Lazarus: My doctorate experience and rise again. Whenever I awake is my morning. Whenever I am born is my birthday. So, tell me! Should I sob, soak and sink, like biscuits dipped into a cup of tea, or a cake of clay thrown into the sea? Four days. Even death couldn't decay me. I'm Lazarus. A friend of Jesus. Here I am. The forty tubers of yam from my father's barn are mine. Have you not heard they are now secured in a prestigious museum, "Telematics and Informatics"? Data is much more than gold when prospectors engage with the prospect in the moment-to-moment interactions as the self and the second self the miners mine and dine and the land remains still unraped. The ones whose dreads sprout from birth aren't to be pinned down for exorcism, duh! I may be just the morning dew, but I'm still dropping-in ink on paper, my ink cartridges amount into a mountain. I'm Kilimanjaro! I'm Chappal Waddi! I'm also Grossglockner! Climb me. Climb me now. Come, climb me. That's what I thought. Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Jesus, I know! Paul, also I know! So, tell me, Professors! Who are you? References Lazarus, S. (2018). Birds of a Feather Flock Together: The Nigerian Cyber Fraudsters (Yahoo Boys) and Hip Hop Artists. Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society, 19(2),63-81.