Ah, I think it's all in that mode & mood neatly now, Bill. A setting, so to speak...
Doug
On Oct 30, 2013, at 3:39 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Many thanks, John and Doug. Surprises me, John, that you would see universalities. But I suppose we only shift so far in the confines of an institution. Dead right as usual, Doug, I have tinkered below and it felt so right to do it. Macca remains as an exception to all that present participling and only on revising, did I notice the 'doubling' coming up three times which I have left.
>
> Regards,
> Bill
>
> Slipping into belonging
>
> Being on the edge of change;
> The Moon landing being slipped into British
> History as an example of modern colonisation.
>
> Doing Geography projects in small groups,
> presenting finished product on coloured A3 paper;
> negotiating up from being responsible for The Heading.
>
> Trimming the bottom isosceles of our tan ties with scissors.
> Ribbed long socks and pale yellow cotton girls' sports tunics;
> Annette's wiry red hair and freckled arms clashing with all that paleness.
>
> Opting to sit longer at desks after The Bell for Rock Lunch Club, egg sangos
> and fruitcake splayed from brown bags; Cocker Happy jaunting
> on the school's stereo, wall-mounted Wharfedale speakers.
>
> Double desking with Felicity in Pure,
> while chalked formulae accumulated on the smooth blackboard.
> Waiting for her thigh to shift; the times she allowed nestle.
>
> Slinging my Malvern Star up, on frosty mornings by the front wheel,
> it latching between spokes on the high hook in the Bike Shelter.
> Mouse's bright red 500cc Suzuki squatting below its pedal cousins.
>
> Doubling as a dour Exam zone, Room 32, in its own isolated block,
> being used as drama room; pretending to not care when my part
> in a play was rotated to Jovan, who later died in a car accident.
>
> Noticing my hand being the only one up, responding
> to a question about The Merchant of Venice, the penny
> dropping: the maths/science elites really didn’t know.
>
> Writing maths solutions on the board with both hands at the same
> time, Mrs Sikh, because she just found it efficient; casually smoking
> Mr Bodley, insisting post-PE shower doors remain propped open.
>
> Catching, in The Breezeway, the word 'period', clearly not denoting
> subject session, amid muffled laughter from behind cupped hands:
> knowing there was stuff I didn't know and couldn't ask about.
>
> Tough Macca dropping dead after an inter-school footy game.
> Guest speaker Danny Spooner singing 'The Famous Flower of Serving Men'
> a cappella; the hush in the hall at the tale of portents and transformations.
>
> Collecting signatures on a petition for which I wrote the preamble,
> proposing a Form Six student smoking room in the Physics lab; posting
> it in the mail in a stamped envelope to squeaky-voiced Principal Perry.
>
> Being summoned to 'Head' office as number one signatory;
> treated warily, even respectfully, by someone in power
> for the first time. Permission denied; a watch put on me.
>
> Beatling his straight hair vertically over his forehead, Ned Wilson,
> running the black comb teeth the full width of his head just above eye
> level, never taking eyes off his image in the long mirror in the boys' toilet.
>
> Hearing instructions in French over the PA for a senior class;
> ignoring other bulletins over the PA, not even knowing that
> The Pirates of Penzance was a musical, for the whole of 1968.
>
> Failing woodwork in form two and my father a carpenter;
> Pop Quizzes in Science trotted out by a rotund American;
> matching terms with precise definitions his brainwave.
>
> Looking down on vulnerable teacher in steeply tiered Room 15,
> designed for cooking demonstrations; ascending desks
> perched on squeaky scaffolding-supported floorboards.
>
> The rumbling of pulled down continuous cloth ‘blackboards’
> to expose virgin dark green - or remnants of unscrubbed lessons.
> Yardstick rulers resting on the wall, outsized wooden protractors.
>
> Feeling woozy in metalwork room; each boy at lesson's end, standing
> to attention by his vice, silent, stared down by grey dust-coated
> Mr Mir's chocolate eyes above wiry black-grey moustache.
>
> Coming adrift, the seat of my wooden chair, it thwacking to the floor
> as we inverted them in unison at day's end in Art, laughter;
> accepted for the first time on the other side of the Yarra.
>
> bw
> 31.10.13
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Latest books:
Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
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Art is always the replacing of indifference by attention.
Guy Davenport
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