Sounds grim school
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 10 March 2015 21:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 'Wet Schoolday 1953'
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.=
|