The Story



Wind lifts a poppadum from my plate
and shatters it on the path.
The principal gauges me through glass.

The Korean student runs, a jog on the spot,
the Japanese jumps, a trampoline,
grins with all of a comic’s hardiness.

They have been awaiting my story all week.

Into the classroom block they file,
uniform draining their pigment, white silver
wheatgrass lifted by strands of string
from the tops of their heads.

‘This is a secret,’ I begin. ‘It could lose me my job.’

Dream



Why wouldn't you look at my birds?
I'd placed them in plastic sleeves
and laid them out on the table,
at a distance to avoid the crumbs.
You'd have had to stand to look at them, sure.
The robin redbreast stood on a snowy branch.

Yesterdsy, I heard a bluetit's song.
Pyii, pyii, it went, the other side of hedge,
as if sucking oxygen. Sometimes
it flew inside the hedge,
a foot or so at a time. 'Bluetits
don't sing,' you said. Your birdfeed hangs

limply from the garden wall. Nuts, grain
in convenient beakfuls. There's no
bird that'll go near it.

Dream 14 1 10




Parents 'Get some more mussels from the fisherman.' My dad moves skeleton of a big digger in hallway, intact. 'Well done, dad.'

We look at his lot of cars and tractors, 'Do you ever just take a photo and look at this, dad?'

See a woman in pet store feed mink to animals. It looks bemused on floor of cage.
Same scene in pet store to right.
I find an eyebrow/eye/jaw on ground and pick it up. Consider dropping it in a cage.

Dream



In plane, won't leave ground
disembark, reboard
taxies interminably, won't lift off.
My parents, witness.

Dream 3 1 10

Handed baby. I watch on 3 screens as Rainbow credits begin. Colour fills the yellow grubby guttering.

Someone is coming for me in the park. I hide, crawl to building. On way spy them search for me and fail. People there. Is it a cinema?

Next day, on sofa, friend arrives with baby. I hold it. Other man is present. I know Rainbow will cover walls soon, and worry. It will reveal my actions somehow, in the shading probably. It doesn't come on. Move away from screen.

Dream 30 12 9

Teaching. A boy lifts window, at back of class, and when I go to see, he has jumped the 10 or so feet onto a small level base of stone. We are two floors up. I angrily shout to him to come back, and turn my back to suck oxygen from the flame. During the course of the lesson he does this, jumps across and back, several times. At the end of the lesson, I see he is gone and walk to the window. He is on the plinth. Between us, to the left, students holler and look at him from the other classrooms. 'Come back!' I yell. I don't care how. He moves uncertainly on the small square base and falters. I watch him hit his head and fall down the stonework to the ground.

At housing block, to explain what has hapened. Children there. One whispers insults to me such as 'Murderer.' I'm told that the news is bad. I don't stay to find out how bad. I explain myself to a bunch of kids. I've been teaching five years I think to myself. I shouldn't have to explain myself. My explanations don't wash with some of the students. A violent father, possibly away for some reason.

Then in cafe, two women. I have to explain situation to them. I don't reveal my part, know even to talk to them will anger man if he finds out.

Did I punch some of the kids? I don't know. Keep your distance.

Dream 7 1 10

Library - Lou Reed lyrics, thick hardback.
Photos of ... him? On street, distant.
A book 'The Art of Porn' hardback b&w v. little
nudity. I read them and others as people sit
round me waiting to use the stamp.
I omit to stamp Lou Reed.

Home, show others my finds, not porn one.

Back to school with book, up staircase,
along corridor past a woman at a counter
to my left. All way round nowhere ...
Prince's 'Kiss' starts playing. I go down a floor,
sure it is along corridor and round. This time
the girl at reception is younger - 13? The
music is audible. We strut along corridor
together smiling. The stern woman appears,
but we are undaunted. She reprimands me but
I pat/toussle the girl's hair once, and walk
on the yellow-lit corridor.

Dream 6 1 10



A boy catches a ball briefly between his neck and shoulder
then releases it.

I nod at a kid, and he is stripped of two joints.

Walk up and I overlook a Peruvian walker's dream.
A ridge between walls, rocky hills.

Cam parks in B'strow, and I am in staffroom (all new.)
Ian comes down hall, then Fran and he appear.
'Hello, Fran and Ian,' I say, coldly. There are people in staffroom,
cutting things out on desks - Matt and new guy. V crowded.
Students too. There is to be an interview. Someone comes in
and asks Cam, 'What is tenure?' She says 'Tenure is what they
pay you for a job.' The student leaves. I go to Cam
and say 'Ian's trying to screw the new teacher out
of money.' She says, 'Shhh' and I see Ian is next to her.
I say 'He deserves more based on experience,' to Ian.

I wonder how Cam can get me home. I walk to
car in car park, pass students who resemble but aren't
Korabe and Hidemi.

Poems by my two Bradford-on-Avon students


Nature's Theatre


slip in socks
pushed against the door
a bruised cocyx

at a concert I gave out bells
mirroring, shadowing
a boy

slipped twice
as I sang solo
braved forest fire Croatia

by Abby



Dog Walk with Friends


Semington. Georgia and James.
Wind whispering cold.
ice shaped like a heart.

Stone shattered on ice.
Crack. We walked it.
Carved our names.

Jumping across hay bales.
I scrunched my hands in my pockets.
Our names fixed in the ice.

by Sophie


Thin Ice


It isn't cold.
When you fall over
you bring your hands in.

Brain feeling tired
not thighs.
You don't know
these people:
wearing normal clothes
being normal
talking normal.
You don't want to talk
to these people.

Orange cones.
Lady on the floor -
still
she lies.

People no longer circling.

Stop.

Take the lady off the rink.

by Sophie


Blocking


It has a rhythm -
like rolling up your swimming costume

I came late so I couldn't choose
and was cast as a woodsman and squirrel

by Sophie