I.

“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.

With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,

“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”

Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.

This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.


II.

“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi

With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:

the fulcrum and the lever.

Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:

A framework of the undeniable
Fact:

the world is separate
In only these two words:

Taub at Tihaya

The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.

III.

“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

Tihaya

The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.

Taub

when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.

these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.

- 18 October 2017

I'm like a teachers pet except what I  learn I regret
Eager to be the best but stressed when it comes to the test
I'd rather lay down mindful practicing in my head
Then to lay down mindless depressed as s__t in my bed

Some days he wore his teacher's mask,
It was his little trick
To disguise himself from students
When feeling rather sick.

He put it on and just like that
He wore the biggest smile -
He laughed and joked and taught them well,
At least for a little while.

The problem with the teacher's mask
Was that it wouldn't go.
He needed it when feeling down
And that was always so.

He wore it when he'd woken up
On the wrong side of the bed.
He wore it when he wasn't feeling
Quite right in the head.

He wore it when he fell in love
And broke his feeble heart.
He wore it when his friend had died
And his life was torn apart.

He wore it for so very long
He soon forgot his face.
He soon forgot his misery.
He kept it in its place.

He kept it for so very long.
It was a masquerade
So perfect that nobody could
Have seen through the charade.

And then that fateful day arrived:
He wrote that, "If they ask,
When rope is found around my neck,
I wore my teacher's mask."

Sitting at a desk,
pretending to pay attention to the professors monotone.
He wasn't always so dead.
He used to love baseball.
He would crack a wooden stick into the ball and watch it fly.
He would revel in the roar of the crowd.
Like it was all just a beautiful dream.
Now he teaches English.
His joy has been swallowed like tobacco between his now rotting teeth.
His life is a series of graded essays and Shakespearean words he barely understands.
It is as if his only joy is the memories.
Class will stop for 10, 15 minutes at a moments notice because suddenly he is lost in the memories and he can remember when life was good.
That is what life can never take from him.
At least for now.

Dear teacher,
When you strut about the class, I get the eerie sensation that you are buck n.
May be it's your pink colour doing the trick, spreading from your skin, enveloping your clothes
And also, your ponderous bums
Two melons nestling inside the sack
Or should I say balloons
Or bowling *****?
Your cheeks, the cleft chin and the stubble
And the feminine dimples you make when you
Grin
Your lips that are too pink and fluffy,
Babyish
Upon which I plan to plant my garden of kisses
Your Adam's apple, the size of a cherry
The thicket of hair in your armpits
That I steal a glance at
Every now and then
When you raise your hands
To demonstrate-
Your argument.
Coal-black, steely, squiggly mesh
No, teacher, I want you the way I see you
ie.
Clothed
I don't want to go deep
And dig
Excavate
The meat-eater in front of me and the two vegans
On my either side
Would go for it
It's the way you call my name-
'Lola' 'Lola' 'Lola'
As though you invented it
And breathed into my nose your breath
( And taking two not three steps down the palate)
I know it's your heavy fondness for me
That does the trick
Mounting your tongue and taking it
Just to make your 'Lola' sound sensual
And tempting
And your ears...
Lolaaaaaaa!
( This time the teacher shouting)

Leaders whom we followed
Are very rare, sporadic woad
Who cures by brain stowed
With lots of info like Spode.
Mrs. Jyoti Kumta, a Daniel, rode
Like a strong horse strode
And asked all of us to goad
Upon values, which we towed
Earlier on an unknown road.
Thanks to Jyoti who mowed
Our ignorance and sowed
Seeds of cognition and glowed.
She completely made an abode
In our hearts and not be decode.

Life has been never so humorous
It is also not so rancorous;
It is full of injuries and pus,
We have been troubled by cuss.
But life, my dear, is not sonorous;
It is much largely murderous.
Teachers care for all future fuss.
All teachers care for dangerous
Children who lead life glamorous.
Teachers are always right rigorous,
Who will guide against vaporous,
And are strong and tall like coniferous.
They like great Shivaji, truly valorous.
Teachers care for all future fuss.
Follow them Oh! ye malodorous;
And they will fill you with flowers.
Teachers care for all future fuss.

By Arcassin Burnham

Mister Mr. Spare me the cheap talk and all
Of the schemes,
I'm not amused by your dilemma of sneaking
Behind scenes,
I'm just waiting for all of these nightmares to
Turn into dreams,
The problems will occur wherever you are by
All means,

I'm glad to be a teacher,
I hate to be learning,
While gravity is holding us down,
Inside we're burning,
So I lock myself in a freezer to prevent being grilled,
Didn't ask to hear about your gossip,
Please save me the grief.
I'm glad to be a teacher,

Mister Mr.

TEACHER
Teachers are an idle ,
They are a guider ,
They are healthy from mind ,
They are also very kind ,

Teachers are like gods ,
They gives  bless to all ,
They gives us educational diet ,
And they incresaes our minds height ,

Teachers are like parenrs ,
They never have hrassment ,
They are also called sir ,
But they didn't have fur ,

Teachers are reader and writer ,
But they are not a fighter ,
Sometimes they get exhausted ,
But they never get fainted.