The pen, they say, is mightier,
but is it keener than a knife?
This brittle blade of insolence,
unleashed to lash at life.

'Yeah, innit, Bruv, he got right up in my face,
cos my phone was out in lesson time
and he called me a disgrace.
Like, so, whatever, mate,
I told him where to go,
trying to tell me English,
while I'm textin' my new ***.'

The pen is not mightier,
it is tarnished and obtuse,
a vision of a different age,
wrought blind from its misuse.

Its sapling song of innocence,
split south across the grain
and cast across the classroom,
yanked up and lobbed again.

'Do you get me, Blood?
He was pointing at a seat,
expectin' ME to sit there,
as if it were a treat.
I told him where to stick it
and called him out a clown,
I **** this one-way death pit
as I'm walkin' round and round.'

The pen should still be mighty
and not a strangled stream,
that's crawling up an incline,
like an M. C. Escher dream.

Its muddy banks lie dormant,
both acorn and an oak.

'Cut that ****, you KEENO,
let's ******* for a smoke.'