"headmasters" poems
“Oh you’re Irish?” he said.
“Did you learn the language much?” he said.
Honestly, what can I tell him? I was raised in the North - a ****** wasteland for such a naïve question.
Vague memories of fumbled classes where our secret history was ditched just to get straight into the basics (Cad é mar atá tú?)
No – seriously - I was not tied to it – it was anonymous to me at that age.
Forgotten like some distant echo of once visiting Coole House as a child.
Sure, we knew it was “important”, “our national language”, “heritage” etc. and we were warned it was quickly slipping into the drain of Western hegemony.
But it was baffling, unsexy and only the blunt-faced humorless IRA thugs amongst us were in any way keen.
Then it was gone, just like the faded memories of “The Children of Lir” from my primary school.
Looking back I wonder, what was the point?
A half-full measure paying lip service to our identity.
Teachers and headmasters terrified of the grand colonial reveal that the lessons might have hinted at (were they trying to stop us being Provos-in-waiting?).
And all of this against the awful shame of a common tongue that had no foe yet was slowly vanquishing from our shores.
It could have all been so different.
Rather than rushing to get something in our empty skulls, they could have given us a sense of joy, pride & belief in our own culture.
Calling on Yeats, Behan, Heaney and others to drown us in the language of our ancestors.
Telling the stories of old that only the academics & hippies were keeping from us then.
You know, it might kept us all on the same beautifully illuminated page.
We might have been comfortable in our skins and open to others,
not looking deep into our worthlessness and lashing out at them.
Language is being and language is connecting, I’ve learnt.
But that’s not something I got from my secondary school.
June-July 2018
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
A young lad only fifteen, lived a hard life, grew up to be mean.
One day the lad being hard, got into a scrap in the schoolyard.
He was taken at once to the Headmasters room.
He was left alone to sit and reflect, awaiting his doom.
He began to ponder and wonder about his behaviour.
He thought, If I am always getting into fights, will anything ever come right.?
Will everyone I meet, walking down the street, stare and pass me by, too scared to even say 'Hi'
The Headmaster took his seat and told the boy to stand.
He asked the boy why he was always so mean? Did he think it made him a man?
The boy took a while to think, took a breath and replied "i'm sorry for the trouble I cause, I've had a hard life but I can turn it around, if you can take a chance, find it in your heart to give me a new start".
The Headmaster was taken by surprise, looked into the boys eyes and replied
"if as you say you will change your ways from today, then I will let you go on your way"
"should I hear any reports of you being mean and unkind, any reports of you crossing the line then you will be expelled, feel sure it's the truth that I tell"
"now be on your way don't let me see you again today"
The boy relieved ran out the room and went to every class until every exam he did pass.
His life turned out pretty good
, he got a job as a mechanic working under the hood.
His reputation grew far and wide, he worked hard and with lots of pride.
Then one night working late, a beautiful young girl brought in her car, and plucking up courage he asked her on a date.
Two months later down on one knee he asked her to be his wife, thankful for the second chance he was given to turn around his life.
Five years further down the line, now Father himself to two.
The Headmasters car had broken down. The boy now a man, towed his car into the garage.
He told the Headmaster of his marriage, how he owned his own home and ran his own garage.
The Headmaster puffed full of pride, glad the lad had turned his life around, and was living a life that was now sound.
You see that day Five years past was to be the Headmasters very last, he was feeling happy and carefree.
Between you and me, he did relate to the boys state, having lived a hard life too.
In his early days the Headmaster's life had been saved when someone gave him a chance.
With this in mind and feeling generous of spirit he gave the boy a chance to prove, the boy took it as he had nothing to lose.
Doesn't everyone deserves a second chance?
©jackiemm158
Apr 19, 2018
Apr 19, 2018 at 6:01 PM UTC
Kids huddle in the corridors
In the staff room they hide in shells
The teachers who don't like children
Preferring stale sweat and coffee smells
In the classrooms they run riot
With rulers books and pens
Everybody's a target for trouble
Particularly the kids without friends
There's always a classroom bully
No brains and the charisma of a slug
But the girls just love a Neanderthal
Who's nothing more than a ****
Then ofcourse there's the crackpot joker
Protected by madness and dry wit
Always avoiding the troubles
He's the candle that always stays lit
A posse of the beautiful ladies
Flaunt around the painted halls
Lipstick perfume and mothers mascara
While the hair flows like Niagra Falls
And finally the come the sportsmen
Who tower over the rest
They take physical activity so seriously
Cause they just want to be the best
A mention for the headmasters favourites
Who sit secretly in the armchair at home
Parents believe they're learning academics
But they watch This Morning and go for a roam
It makes you or it breaks you
The job that makes you cool or a fool
Nowhere to run in education
The nature of the beast that we call school
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 8:08 PM UTC
So much pain
Outrun the brain
Situated under chandeliers
In the old, ailing cavern
Reverberating ghouls
Lick the well of my ear
And now I am frightened
By the notion of the sun
Twisted asunder
Incisive thoughts
Corrupted domain
I live under a sky blue dome
A construct of my headmasters
Where I roam
Restless in the gloam
The brain has weighed me down
To my knees
I cannot find my knees
Or my eyes
My crooked fleece cannot protect me
From the chartreuse breath of the past
Life does me no favours
Therefore
I will give it everything
Until I am hollow and adjusted
Senile and peculiar
Must the brain remain?
Must the brain remain?
My words are a disservice
To the motions of the planets
They cannot grace this life
How little it all may matter
May 5, 2019
May 5, 2019 at 4:18 AM UTC
I put my headphones in watching the scenery go by.
I look up at the night sky speeding past .
The tires of the car are steadly driving
practically kissing the road .
Silence is my bestfriend.
We spend days togehter, and nights together.
I look up at my parents at them.
My dad looks at me through the mirror and says "val why are you quiet? Are you okay ?"
I paused my music shrugged and said the normal "I'm fine"
I play my music again .
Little did they know I learned something about myself,
the things I can do . My parents say one thing
,But their minds say something else . Yes I can read minds, I don't want to seek help from my parents because they would either
A. Think I'm crazy or
B.Send me to some testing facility .
We are riding to my new boarding school RoseHaven . The students there seem to have powers too , but it's a secret .
I hope I make new friends . I'm really nervous ...
We finally pull up to the school .
My parents walk me from the parking lot ,to the court yard, to the headmasters. I say goodbye to my parents. I wasn't sad about leaving my parents, they always focused on the job.
I finally have time with the headmasters.......
TO BE CONTINUED
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 3:35 PM UTC
Heavily addicted rainstorm/
In the midst of coffee spilt tears/
Blue curtin ramblings/
In a headmasters grave/
Lolled eyes that leer/
Uncomfortably built from a clean slate/
And only avoided to hide behind/
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017 at 8:46 PM UTC
If we may stop you,
Are we alone when we die?
And are we easily shot out of the night
Like billowing butterflies?
Battered and shot
Bruised and bought
By our headmasters
All this fear of the stronger
Are we not like mites?
And will we easily blame our fright
When we burn from the light?
Holding our clots
Proud, all for nought
As time grows faster
In the dawn’s old hue,
Will we sigh when we sleep?
Or is there no rest after the leap
Beyond the deep?
There is nothing to hold
For rust and gold
Are all the same in the rapture
Must we run much longer
Away from the keep?
If time keeps us under its sweep,
Is living terribly cheap?
We’ll burn to spite the cold
Despite not being told
Beneath the ice, was a pasture
With trees holding the fruit
Of our untold labours
Now, dried from the pursuit
Of the trunk's ashen paper
Jun 20, 2019
Jun 20, 2019 at 5:57 PM UTC