Schooldays

Tinkling ivories
in a deserted school hall
at the dark end of the '80s.

Dust-choked curtains.
An introduction to the classics:
Ludwig van Beethoven and
Being Bullied for Beginners.

The next generation,
blanks to be filled in;
legerdemain in leather gloves,
executed by a legion
of Dr. Strangeloves
(decidedly strange).

"It's character-building," so they say.
I say let me build my character
in my own quiet way,
little by little
and piece by piece,
molecule by molecule,
mini quiche by mini quiche.

I do not deserve, want or need
any of the following:
a shatterproof ruler smacking my wrist,
a board rubber whistling past my head,
the flaming cheeks of a slapped Aris
or a Bunsen burner turned on my eyeball.

Sit down and write these lines, a hundred times:
"I must not use my powers for evil."


B.R. 19.02.2023


Ian Ogilvy as Grayson the school bully in Tomkinson's Schooldays, the first episode of Terry Jones and Michael Palin's "Ripping Yarns".


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