An interesting almost anti-nostalgia poem, Max.
I wonder if you need to look more carefully at the near rhymes that come & go in various stanzas. I was watching them, & then for them (as they disappeared); thought they added to the movement of the memory.
Doug
On Mar 10, 2015, at 3:53 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Wet Schoolday 1953
>
> Raining again on my Grammar School.
> Biking there was hard and slow - bike shed’s full -
> long dark passages with coat-hooks smell
> bad already - wet coats, dank boys.
>
> Morning classes drearier than usual -
> calculus, French grammar, mutual
> disdain between masters and us.
> We don’t get out at noon for air, these
>
> standard Auckland winter days.
> Lunchtime at last - masters vanish
> into their common-room haven.
> We line the corridors, sandwiches
>
> munched quickly, restless and bored.
> How can we pass the time? Whenever
> some boy comes our way heading
> for the far end we jostle him, shoving
>
> him to the other side - others
> jostle him back to us. With luck
> he’ll impale himself on a metal
> coat-hook at shoulder level.
>
> The wet day’s been marked
> for shortening. The bell sounds:
> briefest lunch break, early release
> from restive afternoon class,
>
> satchel crammed with homework,
> biking shakily homeward,
> up Alberton Avenue, round
> sodden Mount Albert again
>
> in trying winds and freezing rain.
> Mother’s been on the watch for me: son,
> change into these in front of the fire,
> kettle’s boiled - tomorrow’s forecast’s dire.
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
There is no life that does not rise
melodic from scales of the marvelous.
To which our grief refers.
Robert Duncan.
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