22 Poems from 2010/11 when I was a Teaching Assistant.

CHALKFACE
1.

'Robbery gets
you five'

the boy calls
out across
the crowded

classroom

they threaten
the snake
with knives

I sit between
them, a useless
wooden pier

wondering
if this
is a matter
for the police

or just matter
disintegrating
or / and / but

20 lines

I'm in a
science exam

scribing for
a Congolese girl

- when the task
was to balance
the chemical reaction

of sodium &
hydrogen dioxide

you cant argue
with the answer:

'apple juice
makes you stronger'

when you asked me
if Martin Luther King
had 'a actual dream'

I wanted so badly
to say yes

but I had to cover
your innocent question
in the dust
under all those desks

Sitting atop a
pile of broken
pencils

a kinked bird
crouching over
a colourful nest

they were broken
because they could be
you explained

I traverse the city
east to west
on a shell-green train

I have been
invited to
talk about myself
at my old
university

& who
cannot resist
talking about
themselves

we wait for the
class to sit
down

& then

make them
back out the
door they have
just walked through

to line up
& reenter

until they
might
understand

they are here for
something other

the boy
a mess of gel
& crumpled collars

a shattered tie
around his neck

argues that
his book
has
'words every
where'

when asked
why he is not
reading

'rats eating
sea breeze'

'the most
expensive ghost'

these words
skewered
into essays

tethered
to ugly

pages of
papers

sheaths of
nothing

offered up
cold

leaves following 
feathers

to the ground

9.

the diagonal
scar

across the boys
brow

a hairless strike
jutting

into the black
sphere

a stricken ship
pissing

into his left
eye

was caused by
the butt of
a gun

an example photo
in a frame

he sits in the
class

waiting to be
torn as if a

a Paraguayan
horse

10.

nobody will say it
out loud

but some of these
kids will not

make it through
their exams

they are grain
& grist

carrying the
waiting

helplessness of
goalkeepers

11.

after arrest
it is up to
the courts

the police do not
decide the sentence

the boy tells the PCO

they came on forty bikes

they would never serve more than twenty years

so he would kill
every last one of them

every
last
member
of their family

12.

the class, when
hollered at,
collapse into
their desks

a bloat of hippopotami

but when the
lesson stings
the air around them
they conceive

an exaltation of larks

spinning off the
breakers, floundering

lost in the
white caps
of mine
& yours

13.

may you be
     the grandfather

of bald men

only fit to wear
              cold, oily denim

may you conjure
     hats full of excrement

         & dead rabbits
because without you

we are all lost

14.

what is a simile?
your nostrils are like a curved path
through the grass

similes are, like, whatever
metaphors are whatever
she thinks

15.

The Latvian kid
drops his coat and bag
in one swift movement

like a magicians cloak
or a boxers gown

using his stump
as a weapon he hits
the black kid hard

in the throat and
again in the temple

the Latvian accused
the black kid of stealing
his pound coin

a dull, corn-coloured
prize they are now prepared

to kill each other for
& they nearly do

their arms fold around
each other like belts about
badly-packed suitcases

with no free hands
they both hit the table

head first, open-eyed
but the fight does not end
the adrenaline is up

this is the third fight today
I have tried to break up

& the first time I felt scared
to put myself in the way
because these kids are serious

& I have no doubt this is not finished here today

16.

woodwork
is
now
called
resistant
materials

it's
fitting
that
children
so averse to
learning
study
substances
so immune

& recalcitrant
to impression
or modification

17.

the pretty white
girls shoal

off the coast
in chorus

the Polish collect
together

circling the language
teacher

surface runoff
pouring

the Afghans sit
in drudgery

beach cusps pointing
seaward

toleration of each
other gone

18.

before the assessed,
the millions

begin.
something nothing

undone the ties,
the uniforms

dis-scratch.
poly monosyllabic.

allowed the paragraphs,
the line breaks

unbroken.
type upset

desperate the room,
the panicking

bird-like.
breath egg taking

19.

he stands
     an unbrushed drum

pulled by
     neither horse nor fork

his anger
     a pouch of toads

in his
twitching cheeks

the shark
& the starfish
the pig
& the tortoise

Aida with an elephant

20.

judging by the burr
the wet burlap sack of birds
had been dragged through the meadow

babies are agents of entropy
speeding up the normally slow approach of chaos
like a bomb or a sneeze

 the optimism of autumn's ice-cream van

  walking along the corridors i notice the flow
  of aggression and anger

  of broken heels & un-breakfasted stomachs
  growling under the assault of sugars

  please hide yourself among them
  be a spider underneath the stones

  progress is green & and unreal, a construct
  of spreadsheets and teacher's dreams

  i love you but i don't know how to show it
  Drink, feel, feel, drink, break a thumb

Now we have a a baby of our own.

21.

A vision

of the  priest

of the artist

bellowing at blank canvases and empty faces

humming / ringing

with the calling

22.

We were twelve hours

from from first cramp

to the cloth rub that

brought you shuddering

to a scream. Outside the rain

made a mess of the cigarette butts

and dragged wet footprint through

the corridors. We took you home.

feeding | the | b e a r