'MAKE WORDS BREAK FROM ME HERE ALL ALONE, DO YOU!"
( To G.M.H. my saviour )

Grabbed
by my curls

my face forced
into the toilet bowl

flushed with laughter they
with great glee

*** on me.

This the sacred ritual
of becoming

a First Year
in Secondary.

They hang me up
to dry on a coat rack.

I am an all akimbo
feeble bag of flesh and bones

defenceless nerd.

"Tuttuttut!" they tut
"Reading Hopkins at your age!"

I dangle hopelessly
a helpless broken puppet

their brute bullying
mastering me...Lord!

They tear The Windhover
by Christ...from the Anthology.

Scatter the precious words
in a confetti of hate.

I call on Father Hopkins
to come to my aid and

he gives me
his words.

I speak with all the authority
of his voice.

"I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-  
  dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding "

"Shhhhh....shushhhh!" they try to shush me
in case Br. Finbar storms out of his cell

like a soutane'd spider
to see such poetry

scrawled in a scream
upon the air.

But I am not for shushing!

"My heart in hiding  
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!"  

"Shhhhhh.....SHHHHHHH!" they now plead.

"here  
  Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!"

"SHHHHHHH,,,,SGGGGGG!" they beg.

But there is now no
stopping me I

am charged with the grandeur
of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

See, they flee before the glory
of his words.

I fling phrase after phrase after them.
His words chasing them.

"No wonder of it:

shéer plód makes plough down sillion  
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,  
  Fall, gall themselves, and **** gold-vermillion."