'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."
