Today I began to hem,
rein in the threads that grow free
when left unstitched

I ticked a set of books
and, though I love my charges,
my heart hurt

My language is another,
my experience of this globe
unutterably different,
though geographically the same

And I want to help them play the game, I do,
but I don’t trust those
telling me how to

My instincts,
honed by humans I trust, unless
I’m lost in my own Truman Show,
show me the right way to go,
divergent  from this current shitshow

The pedagogy of care
is somewhere way, way
over there

I know which fat bells are tolling
with “Pupils come first” on lips
like a benediction spoke by those
whose fingers dip the collection box

But it can wait.

Piles of marking like ancient pillars
meant for Samson to do his thing
remain upright

Because a little tight in this metaphor,
Samson is for cooking a roast
playing video games
and watching the last gasp of TV,
anyone with me?

Look at us perched again,
anxious dreams set in long gone buildings
where the kids won’t do a thing we ask
and for some reason we’re naked
(except for a mask)

And as my old man says,
the conveyor belt hasn’t so much as slowed
so our wish for a cautious toe to get set
will be whipped from starter to panicked plenary
before we hear the gun crack

Know this, comrades:
the holes in our practice we think show clear
are lost to the fizz and bubble of our charges.
When Monday comes they’ll listen (mostly)
as we carry on regardless.

Mushroom promises swell into existence,
flim-flam miracles,
pristine plump “truths”
when uttered, swelling proud
alongside peach-keen
endorsing smiles

But the treacle of decay acts quickly
so even the casual observer
sees the rot before the ink dries,
smells rank mould,
and we decry ad infinitum

The edges of summer’s
soak and throb routine
begin their curled leaf fraying
with the last fat spoons of clotted dreams
lashed haphazard

All those weights we foisted forward
to when wet autumn
would just **** us off anyway
rattle-threat at their fastenings
in the fractious post-tropical gales

Inertia makes it clear
why our transatlantic cousins call it fall,
but pre-echoes of crisp, clear frosts
do their best to placate anxieties
that appear to be calendared