Silence
and hands on heads,
no talking
whatsoever
and I do not
want to hear a
peep
out of you,
any of you,
till you learn some manners…
Our arms outstretched
having mastered the art
of class room sign language
by the time we were eight
and the deflection of the hammered down
metal measuring device
across the bare biting knuckles,
scrapped skin
bleeding as the monstrous
and over-zealous uncrowned ruler
struck again and again
and the headmaster would be lethal
to the lads in other ways, such was his whim
as he tried to be your pal…
Hands on heads I said,
are you deaf, daft, an idiot…
you’re trouble…last name applicable
till you got into a different class
with a teacher who didn’t fight in the war…
you’re trouble, I have my eye on you, six times six,
don’t get clever with me
and pretend to mumble, hands still
on heads, six times six,
five times nine
seven nines are
nines sevens are
answer boy,
answer now
thick
with sweat and perspiration
a hundred lines later
and cramp in my hand,
small, inferior
upon the junior school heap
till my last year…
headmaster trying to be a pal,
weird and a little sick, second year
full of childhood illness, hardly at school,
best year of my young life catching
Chicken Pox and Measles
and the first strike of Bronchitis, must learn
to smoke forty a day, Silk Cut,
Players No. 6, if it gets me out of school, teacher strikes
us without impunity
if we so much as breathe,
he will watch out
of the corner of his beady
sadistic eye, tyrant and despicable
even now have nightmares
about the Shakeamaker
and the headmaster who wanted
to be your pal…
If I were you, last name applicable
till you reached a class where the softness
of the skin of the teacher and her use
of first name changed everything,
to the point where the eleven plus
was mooted, a far cry from, last name applicable
I would learn fast that you are nothing,
last name applicable,
you are a tiresome boy,
last name applicable,
you will amount to nothing,
last name not only applicable
but with a new middle name
of stupid thrown in for good measure…
I was never so glad to leave your class,
last name withheld,
I was never so glad to get out
of your headmaster’s office,
last name withheld,
I was never so glad to meet you,
beautiful Miss Dicks;
who didn’t call me by my last name
whether it was applicable or not…
I was never so glad to meet you.
Ian D. Hall 2016