—Poetry by Mike Hickman, York, England
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
He has 25 years’ experience,
But he still needs to check if that needs an apostrophe.
And he hasn’t read a new book about teaching for 24 of those.
He has 25 years’ experience,
But most of that time has been spent growing the beard to scare his class,
And the games he plays with the children are older even than that.
He has 25 years’ experience,
Yet owes even more to the half-remembered children’s telly of his youth,
Which is fine because the class won’t recognise his Keith Chegwin impression,
Or the jokes he’s stolen from Morecambe and Wise,
Or the knitted kipper tie circa 1978 that he’d originally worn for a dare,
As if they’d mistake him, when he started, for someone much older,
Someone who knew what he was doing,
Someone who fitted their image of a teacher.
Which they did.
And have continued to do ever since.
He has 25 years’ experience,
But, at the bottom of the bottle on a Friday night,
And when desperate for the human contact his career has never allowed him,
He might just admit the one mathematical equation he truly knows.
He has 25 years’ experience.
Which is to say—
he has 1 year’s experience, 25 times.
(prev. pub. by the Daily Drunk)
YOU IN RED TROUSERS
This is you in red trousers.
Cutting up pedestrians as you loudly pontificate
About everywhere else but here.
It’s a sunny day, there’s not a cloud,
But you’d been to Turkey once,
And that holiday across the States
By Amtrak, you’ll be doing that again.
And your son, now in Canada, he’s doing so well,
And he’s making more than he ever did in the City.
And you and Maud, you’ll be joining him for Christmas,
And maybe you’ll retire there,
When you retire next,
Before you get bored again;
Before you realise that you need something
To distract from the Nothing and the—
What was that, Maud?—you’ll ask
As you realise you’ve left her behind
And she’ll be talking to that friend of hers—
You forget the name—
And it’ll be inconsequential,
Because it’s always the same with the women,
And you couldn’t bear it if this was all it was for you,
If all you did was talk about money and holidays
And investments and your children living their lives
As if for you.
Without the “As if”.
You couldn’t bear it if you were never in the moment,
And you failed entirely to see what was around you,
And you walked into the store
And you picked up the red trousers
And you thought they might suit.
This is you in red trousers.
Best stick with the jeans, then, hadn’t you?
(prev. pub. by the Daily Drunk)
This is you in red trousers.
Cutting up pedestrians as you loudly pontificate
About everywhere else but here.
It’s a sunny day, there’s not a cloud,
But you’d been to Turkey once,
And that holiday across the States
By Amtrak, you’ll be doing that again.
And your son, now in Canada, he’s doing so well,
And he’s making more than he ever did in the City.
And you and Maud, you’ll be joining him for Christmas,
And maybe you’ll retire there,
When you retire next,
Before you get bored again;
Before you realise that you need something
To distract from the Nothing and the—
What was that, Maud?—you’ll ask
As you realise you’ve left her behind
And she’ll be talking to that friend of hers—
You forget the name—
And it’ll be inconsequential,
Because it’s always the same with the women,
And you couldn’t bear it if this was all it was for you,
If all you did was talk about money and holidays
And investments and your children living their lives
As if for you.
Without the “As if”.
You couldn’t bear it if you were never in the moment,
And you failed entirely to see what was around you,
And you walked into the store
And you picked up the red trousers
And you thought they might suit.
This is you in red trousers.
Best stick with the jeans, then, hadn’t you?
(prev. pub. by the Daily Drunk)
NEVER FLOWN
Stacy was so close to leaving the ground,
She could feel her wings lifting,
Her feet, she knew, were off the tarmac,
And then Mark did his blink-blink-blink thing,
Shook out his hair in that way of his,
Affected yet endearing,
When released from his man bun,
And told her that, no, he hadn’t flown either.
And down she came with a screech,
Tires burning like Doc Brown’s Delorean,
Because she’d heard him say he’d been to Singapore
And he was wearing the Yosemite T-shirt right now
And wasn’t there a photo over there on the mantelpiece
Of him on that holiday to Venice?
Yes. Yes, there was. He was on a gondola.
He’d not gone all the way to Venice on a gondola.
So she’d told him she had never flown.
And he had thought, “yeah, me neither,”
Because he meant—Oh, God—he meant as a pilot, didn’t he?
He thought her ambition was to fly the bloody plane
Instead of, say, overcome the vertigo
And the restricted life chances
That made up her faulty flight plan.
That meant she had never flown at all.
“We’ll get to fly one day,” Mark told her,
His quiff fully in agreement with him,
Taking flight on its own as a mirror to his confidence.
“Yeah,” Stacy told him. “Maybe we will.”
By the end of the evening, of course, Stacy would determine
Never to go anywhere ever again.
There’d be no chance at all of flight,
When she’d put herself back in the hangar.
(prev. pub. by The Haven)
FULL NAMES
There are those who don’t feel it, because they’re onto the body of the email
And, frankly, it doesn’t matter to them how they’re addressed,
As long as it isn’t a final demand or a court summons.
But there are others—like me, like very much me—who get stuck on the name.
On the use of the name. Of the full name. Of the first name and the last name.
Sitting there so boldly at the top of the missive.
As if being addressed by someone who doesn’t understand proper salutations,
Who wants to sit between the formal and the informal,
Who likes the idea that you’re not fond of hearing it in full,
Like you once did in the playground,
In the street,
When they were calling after you
For existing.
That it has connotations, associations; that it can make you feel like a kid
That first day in the new class, when the teacher got every other name in the register wrong
Because they could.
It’s like you’re being addressed by someone in a second (or third) language.
It itches with passive aggression.
It provokes an instant dislike of the person who wrote it.
What’s wrong with Mr? Aren’t I worthy of a Mr?
Why not the familiar first name? Am I really that unfriendly?
What are you trying to tell me even before you’ve told me anything?
Why’d you think I’m going to take it?
I’m not going to take it.
Damn well insult me in my own inbox.
How very dare you.
And no, it doesn’t make any difference that you’re automated or you’re a mail merge or you’re spam.
I’ve got the measure of you.
I know your full name.
Try it on once more, and I’ll be telling you what that is.
(prev. pub. by Little Old Lady Comedy)
SCHRÖDINGER’S SHRINK WRAP
It isn’t the ideal place for the session,
amongst the Dexion racking and the reminders.
But it’s better than anywhere else in the house.
It’s quiet up here, undisturbed,
with the barely used desktop computer grinding only a little,
As it boots up, as Matt connects,
as he casts his eyes over the shelving dust situation.
The Japanese 25th anniversary Alien Quadrilogy 9 DVD Bust
continues to look magnificent, beast of a Limited Edition that it is,
But the shrink wrap is easier to dust than the plastic beneath,
And, Helen might have a point about the Special Features,
One day he will want to work his way through the Special Features,
But—come on—that isn’t why he bought it.
It isn’t like there aren’t another six or seven
Alien sets lurking quite appropriately in the shadows.
It isn’t like those aren’t on the To Watch list, too.
Once he’s unwrapped them.
Once he’s determined to crack the seals,
Running his fingernail down the plastic seams,
Letting out that “As New” plastic smell,
Committed to This Being The Time to put them on.
It isn’t the ideal place for the session,
amongst the Dexion racking and the reminders.
The Home Alone Limited Edition paint can.
The Scarface Humidor.
The Dark Knight Rises Batman Cowl.
Is it that their value plummets as soon as they’re opened?
Is he waiting out the eBay moment, when he lets them go for silly money?
“New in box. Unwatched. Still sealed.”
Potentially perfect viewing experiences,
Forever perfect until unsealed.
Isn’t this the ideal time to ask?
Shouldn’t he make use of the opportunity to ask the expert,
What this has all, any of it, been about.
Now that he has committed to seeking Help.
Or should he just angle the webcam away from the racks
And let those mighty beasts of his sleep on?
(prev. pub. by the Daily Drunk)
UNDISTINGUISHED CHRIS’ RED PEN
What undistinguished Chris will tell you
she will not tell herself,
especially when the fears and doubts come to mind.
How much more could she be?
How much longer does she want to be this?
What could she have been instead?
She waves them away with a swipe of her red pen,
with a torrent of “feedback”, as it’s called,
not to be read but felt by the recipients,
as a stinging rebuke of all their failings,
as filtered through undistinguished Chris’ own.
When Chris thinks of the lesson observations,
and the research bids retirement is too far off to avoid,
she locks herself away,
when she’s stopped being tearful,
and the marking like painting stair-rods begins,
harsh, inflexible, unforgiving.
If it doesn’t, how can she stop herself turning the words inwards,
where they most need to go?
How would undistinguished Chris know?
Only taking responsibility for her students’ shortcomings,
never wanting to see her own.
What undistinguished Chris will tell you
is often all she should tell herself.
But, given her title, given her role, given her position,
so far above those she patronises and puts down,
these words will have to suffice,
until—she fears—someone else, sometime soon
will bring their red pen to bear on her achievements too.
(prev. pub. by Kingz Daily)
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
THE WEIGHT OF DUST
—Mike Hickman
The antimacassared armchair, yellowed courtesy of the Dunhill decades.
The folding side table with ash tray, tissues,
and clouded nebulizer mouthpiece resting on unread Dan Brown.
The footstool, frayed and with one foot missing, listing into ‘70s orange, cigarette-burnt carpet.
Sports pages spraying out towards the cracked coffee table.
And yet Linda cannot bring herself to tidy these things away.
Like the room, she is nothing without the weight of dust.
(prev. pub. by Paragraph Planet)
_______________________
Charming British Poet Mike Hickman joins us again today with his interesting thoughts from York. This is the third Brit to visit the Kitchen in as many weeks, joining Neil Fullwood from Nottingham and Stephen Kingsnorth, who has retired from England to Wales and who writes for us now quite often. There are others, too, who cybermail over the pond from time to time, and it’s always, always a pleasure to hear from them and read their fine, intriguing work.
_______________________
—Medusa
What undistinguished Chris will tell you
she will not tell herself,
especially when the fears and doubts come to mind.
How much more could she be?
How much longer does she want to be this?
What could she have been instead?
She waves them away with a swipe of her red pen,
with a torrent of “feedback”, as it’s called,
not to be read but felt by the recipients,
as a stinging rebuke of all their failings,
as filtered through undistinguished Chris’ own.
When Chris thinks of the lesson observations,
and the research bids retirement is too far off to avoid,
she locks herself away,
when she’s stopped being tearful,
and the marking like painting stair-rods begins,
harsh, inflexible, unforgiving.
If it doesn’t, how can she stop herself turning the words inwards,
where they most need to go?
How would undistinguished Chris know?
Only taking responsibility for her students’ shortcomings,
never wanting to see her own.
What undistinguished Chris will tell you
is often all she should tell herself.
But, given her title, given her role, given her position,
so far above those she patronises and puts down,
these words will have to suffice,
until—she fears—someone else, sometime soon
will bring their red pen to bear on her achievements too.
(prev. pub. by Kingz Daily)
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
THE WEIGHT OF DUST
—Mike Hickman
The antimacassared armchair, yellowed courtesy of the Dunhill decades.
The folding side table with ash tray, tissues,
and clouded nebulizer mouthpiece resting on unread Dan Brown.
The footstool, frayed and with one foot missing, listing into ‘70s orange, cigarette-burnt carpet.
Sports pages spraying out towards the cracked coffee table.
And yet Linda cannot bring herself to tidy these things away.
Like the room, she is nothing without the weight of dust.
(prev. pub. by Paragraph Planet)
_______________________
Charming British Poet Mike Hickman joins us again today with his interesting thoughts from York. This is the third Brit to visit the Kitchen in as many weeks, joining Neil Fullwood from Nottingham and Stephen Kingsnorth, who has retired from England to Wales and who writes for us now quite often. There are others, too, who cybermail over the pond from time to time, and it’s always, always a pleasure to hear from them and read their fine, intriguing work.
_______________________
—Medusa
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
to see York, Nottingham, and Wales
