Primary School Fire Practice

Man the lifeboats! Call 911!
Save yourself while there’s still time!
The fire bell goes off in the middle of maths
and everyone falls into line.

“Is it a practice or is there really a blaze Miss?”
“I’m sure that I can smell smoke.”
“Josh said he was going to set the alarm off!”
“And I saw him give it a poke!”

So onto the playground the whole school descends
and each child is brought to attention.
They stamp their feet in the freezing rain
anything for some heat retention.

Then in with a cheer and to a round of applause
come the firemen, all bravado and flair.
With smiles wide and flashing and a glint in their eyes
the lady teachers start smoothing their hair.

“Is everyone out? Is everyone here?”
Asks a fireman in full flameproof gear.
“And who’s that fella’ heading back into the flames?
Oi you man! Get over ‘ere!”

With a wet blanket shielding his body and face
the hero turned, gave a grin
“My Hull City tie never shall burn!
Forget me! I’m going back in!”

A few minutes later he returned, black as soot
coughing up dust and burnt plaster.
“This is my school!” He said clutching the tie to his chest.
Who am I? Why I’m the Headmaster!”

Keep Out of the Reach of Children

She sat on my knee. The shiny red bag slung
over a shoulder means you’re shopping for the day,
sunglasses riding high like a boat on the waterfall’s edge.

She sat on my knee as I explained to her our trip
to the doctor. “Will he use this?” She asked
lifting her tweezers from her nurse’s bag.

She sat on my knee as I pointed to the toy syringe.
I told her how it would squirt medicine into her skin
and it was nothing to worry about.

Even at three, she could clearly see
the colour of every card in my hand.
She had read between my lines and felt
the breeze of my unease on her face.

She sat on my knee as the nurse took a more direct route.
“You’re having an injection today so you don’t get poorly
at big school. It might make you go Ouch!”

She sat on my knee, me hugging her tightly.
A second nurse entered and together both arms
took a singled silver barrelled hit.

She sat on my knee, the orchestra suddenly silenced
the needle snatched from the record,
tears soaking in to my shirt.

She sat on my knee when chunks of chocolate
were pushed in to her clammy palm,
thirty pieces of silver was all I could think of.

She sat on my knee in the coffee shop
and drank her milkshake – mine too.
Two frothy yellow rockets for one wide smile.

But it did not cool the stinging burn in my arms.

Conscious of Time

Even in the lingering light of this early spring evening
the phrase seems to be everywhere.
It is ticking around the feeder with the clockwork sparrows,

it flicks between the couple across the street
as they read their evening ‘papers.
It is like that woman that you always seem to see

no matter where you go.
Is anyone not conscious of time? Nod, raise a hand,
just catch my eye if you have not long realised

that there are only so many cards in your deck,
your chip stack no taller than your fist.
Or that with every dawn another golden fish

is quietly scooped from your pond.
Here on this bed, hot from the shower, I would like to become
- if only for a second – unconscious of time,

resistant to the pull and release of the moon, to be the tiny
puncture point of the compass at the centre of the circle.
One of many circles circumnavigating the globe

or maybe ringing an unknown planet trapped in the telescope,
perhaps a hoop looping above the head of an angel
silently steering a cloud over this house.

INSET (In-Service Training)

Let me begin by saying that yes, we will be
finishing early. I am also conscious of time and I

know how busy you all are, I haven’t forgotten what
it’s like to be in the classroom so I’ll make

a start. If at any point you would like to
chip in, please do. This will work much better as

a two-way dialogue, rather than just me talking at
you. And if I repeat myself stop me, turn the

page, grab me from behind and hook a palm over
my mouth. Drag me into a dark alley and

tell me to shut up. I really won’t be offended.
Now if you would like to go off into your

groups to discuss that, I’ll be taking feedback in…
shall we say… five minutes?

“We Got a Runner!”

When the hammer strikes the head of the chisel
I imagine the muffled shot ringing out down the

cellblock. I picture myself squatting, waiting, listening
for the guards’ heavy horizontal footfalls on the steel

gangway just the other side of these vertical bars. And
only when I am certain that the sound has not pierced

the uncertainty of their poker hands do I deliver the
second blow and wonder how to breach the steel laced

deep within this concrete. But the purpose of today is
not to evade the probing searchlights of the towers, or to

defeat the perimeter fence, not to make it to the border
before the dogs taste my scent. Today is simply the day

to remove these tiles, to force this blade, to watch the fractured
shards fall into the tub. Such a day could even be my season

in hell, where each created space is instantly filled by
another, appearing exactly in its place.

Sweaty Yeti

Does the yeti get sweaty
in his thick furry suit
yomping over the tall icy peaks?
But you know it’s no joke
when you long for a soak
and all you can smell is your feet.

And there are so many troubles
in a life without bubbles
when there’s nowhere to shampoo your hair.
When his pits become niffy
and give off a whiffy
he can’t just go’ dry-clean his fur!

So what can he do?
It’s below minus 2!
And he’s starting to feel a bit mucky.
He finds a cold mountain river
sits in it and shivers
and plays with his best rubber ducky.

Wile E. Coyote

The long battered muzzle
sickly yellow eyes
and that unintended toothless sneer
are surely the result
of a lifetime of struggle and defeat.

If it is true that God loves a trier
then what better example than he?
Canine cannons litter the canyon
but on he goes undeterred.

Even as he plummets to the ground
he is thinking of his next big idea
which we all know will end

in a long descending whistle
a dull and distant thud

and of course

a tiny plume

of smoke.