November is a month
i dread, all the marking...
all the words ..... ideas
clutter up in my head....
all the hopes and ambitions
weigh heavily on my back.

the first day, my birthday
hip hip hooray!!!
then a rushing, pell mell
downward track
of red pens and meetings
going on and on and on

planning, prepping, late night stressing

then, when not at work,
not shirking, just not working
hoping to give the brain a rest
am bombarded...
like i am ******* in cheer
...continual messages of
christmas is near....
coffee and carols,
shopping and angels
harking, harking,
joy to the world, fa al lalala...
Santa queues
truly not an Ebeneezer
but Christmas teasers
in November make me grey
around the gills
fish out of water
lamb to the slaughter

and running on empty,
always empty,
just want one day...
when the world
would stop hassling
and just go away

no end of year parties...
prentending to be hale and hearty
with all sorts of colleagues
and academic smarties
no presentations of budgets..
thinner than last
no we could not fast
this area, to be on line
no it's alright, it will be just fine
while sculling copious amounts
of cheap, cheap, nasty  red wine.
no hangover from said feast...
no,  you be the one to corner the beast.

no more standing with mothers and others
watching children in a god awful christmas play
and clapping and chatting while little bettsy
recieves an award for knitting a sleeve
and george gets one for adding fourhundred and forty

please, please show me the door.....

not to mention hayfever,
daylight savings and more

but all this seems trivial...
when I consider
the blight of my life...
in the stakes of annuity.

the month of November has a great heart
Movember...a charity of moustache art
has an fanatic in my big, bluff,bloke
for a month he curries and cares for the
caterpillar  that grows on his lip...
a fuzzy flecked monstrosity
with the mange and a weird flip.

November a month of avoiding
the succour of contact....
with that thing,
my toes curl now
thinking of it....
tho I try not to react
(after all charity begins at home)
november november
truly you are the ***.

last year he bought
the ****** thing a comb



yet in the end
you are but a month
and it seems I survive you
year after year
thank god for take away meals
and long cold beers....