The teachers, the tutors,
the staff, the head, the unpaid support workers
all bend their head in silent prayer,
know that the God of school simply doesn’t care
about their plight
their lot in life,
their unsaid collective fear
that there will never be a person to emerge from any year
who will make the school stand out
give the badge and crest some polish and stout
who they can hold up as a shining example,
the one person for whom they can, with gushing pride, let new pupils sample
that this is what happens when you pay your dues
you can be worthy of being a statue, a herald, a scholarly muse.
Our father, the god of chalk and dust,
of two eyes in the back of the head, to catch errant smokers we must,
especially when they don’t share their ill gotten gains
and pretend to matron that they can’t be punished because of phantom pains
to the god of the school field,
where we wish we could with authority wield,
the same type of sadistic intent
and let them do two hours of sport in their pants before being home sent,
the young female teachers all hearts a glow
as they smile with evil at the punishment administered for running slow
and the old war horse head, fought in the war,
in a Naffi, doling out rotten spuds, now laying down the law
as he sees fit
and knows that his pupils will never give a shit.
Our father, our lord of maths, trig, cosine and division
let us please have one we don’t dismember with cruel derision,
who like a beacon shines brightly in the pupil fog
and to who makes our time as a seemingly worthless cog
just that little bit sweeter and nice
to have a Sir, a Dame, an O.B.E. is that too heavy a price
for planning lessons in which might spark a notion
that could see peace across many an ocean
our lord, let this nine a.m. bell sound
and let us not be driven, sanity prevailing, into the ground,
we do not ask a lot as we stamp out any sign of the individual
and certainly rage against the kid who is cool.
Dear lord, we do your collective bidding, our day off and future pay rise
are yours to keep, if at least today, everybody wears their school ties.
Ian D. Hall 2015