(no subject)

[johnny9fingers]

Gidding Minor: A Peom by t.s. molesworth.

 

I

Spring term in big skool

wher the clok hav stoped

in the quad betwene chapel and old blok.

it wuond my hart, my dere to wate for lunch

so I gaze out of the windo

at the ickle pritty snoflaks:

wher is the diner bel, the unimajinabl

diner bel?

 

if you ran along thes coridors

(avoiding cave)

you wuold not be gated for the hole of spring

if you came at nite lik a drunken captin of games

sneking in after lites out

it wuold be the sam

or when you climed the loked gate

and hid al nite behind the fives court:

you too (grammer) wuold be cold.

 

ther are other skools

but this, my dere, happen in them al

it always the sam.

 

you are not here to learn

alg. Fr. Lat. Hist. ect. ect.

you are here to neel and pray

and prayer is mor than an order of words

it mean invoking the specters of former swots

to ask them for answers during

v.hard Scrip. test (chiz chiz)

this occur to me as i gaze thruogh the windo.

there are other skools

but it always the sam.

II

 

Ink blotts on a page

fade from blak to gray with age

ink blotts on a cuf

meens the pen is ful enuf

ink blotts on a shirt

meens peason wil get v.hurt

befor he gets much older…

this is the ink that maks boys bolder.

 

the chalk the blakbord and the kane

the tools of tortur and of pane

the motar bord and skolers gown

the cave at the beak’s sturn frown

the gaping vanity of toil

aches lik an unlanced boil

or cramped hans riting lins on Sat.

or plaing thuogh with a strate bat.

 

 

In the doutful tim befor reveille

befor i wake to start my da

i dreamd i had an exeat

and walked the streets

whil the dawn aproach

and who shuld happen by?

the grim reeper? no, a dead headmaster,

typical of the brede, with the

eyes of a familia compuond ghost

and thuoght that 1nce upon a tim

that beaky visage hav been a boy

lik me. wha? horibl fat hav left him

a haedmaster prowling the streets in a dead patrol.

i said: “i hav an exeat” which was a comfort my dere

“so yah boo suks to you.” whereupon

he brake into grate heeving sobs and sa:

“i hav yor number boy, you ma hav got awa

with it this tim, but you step out of line 1nce

and i’ll gate you so fast your feet wont tuoch

the gruond. Lost to Poridge Court

at foopbal as wel” he continu

“last seasons win at eton

mad me overconfident. no mor talk

of cup and medalls. stil, thers always

next year, and a new side.”

He semed almost human in the harf-lite

Droning on about criket and foopbal

And exams and leage tables (mensae) (Lat.)

“let me tel you what it’s al about then”

he sa, “first, you get old; second

evryone els foolish beyond belief

and last you recognize you are just as stupid too.”

ther are other livs

but it always the sam.

The bel clangd: last one down to brekkers

is a weedy wet and a drip.

 

 

III

 

Ther are (i opine) three conditions wich often look alik

yet differ completely: sufer the sam punishment, even.

ignorans of self and of things and of persons;

knolege of self and of things and of persons;

and groing betwene them edukation

wich look like ignorans and knolege combind.

Ergo (Lat. ahem) dislik of a skool

begin as a dislik of edukation in general

even in subjekts you mite lik.

edukation may be gurly

edukation may be freedom:

consider, hey presto, they disapere (i wish).

deten. is unplesant, but

that’s al rite, i supose

as it goes.

 

Reminding myself of this place

and of al the oiks, cads, snekes

tuoughs, bulies also (Eng) incarcerated here,

al with the sam malais (chiz chiz)

if i think of grabber Maj. sleping peasfuly

or of the whol study doing prep

and a few who left before xmas

or other skools

or sigismund the mad maths master

my brane unravels

with the sordidnes of it al.

the diner bel never ring 2wice or backwards:

nor is it a let out to sa

“helo pritty-ickle flower” or

“a ros by any other nam wuold smel as swete.”

lik fotherington-tomas qouting the bard.

its stil us against them: the masters.

when you leve it a diferent matter

but for thos of us stil here

al we hav is a symbol,

a symbol of the living deth called skool:

but that’s al rite i supose

as it goes.

that’s al we can ask for

really.

 

 

IV

 

The skool dog barks the hole nite thruogh

it et the lunchtim sossige stew:

wil die befor the nite is out

pas on with 1ne mity shout

the only hop it has is that

it also devours the skool cat

and with 1ne enormus heve

returns them both to grate releef.


V

 

Beginings, endings, it al the sam

“once upon a tim” and “they al livd hapily ever after”

start and finit are both as one:

so let us begin at finit

so al the words mak sens

(unlike fotherington-tomas

helo birds helo clouds helo sky indeed)

and speke to al of us.

every peom is a colection of lins. and al action

a step closer to cave, to deten. to a gating

or the kane (chiz chiz)

and that is wher we start.

we are kaned by the kaners

when they hit us we do feel each blo

we do lins with the prefekts

when they watch over us to see we do so.

The hour in deten and the hour after prep

are of equal duration. boys out of skool

do not notis tim for tim is bordom

in the afternoon, i wil sho you bordom

in a handful of dust. so now, this afternoon,

outsid chapel, i sa

ther are other skools

but it always the sam.

 

with the drawing of deten. and the beak’s voice calling.

They shal not desist from teaching geog.

at the end of geog. Come Lat. then Greek

wher it al began, wher boys first started leaning

and two hundred generations on

it stil appears unknown.

the unjustified, rememberd gate

stil rancles.

When the last of us

still has to pas Alg.

or Greek.

The grone of the gerund (supine)

the unansered question

harf-herd in the master’s (grammer)

viscious snarl

“Quick now, here boy NOW boy

oh you really are a compleet simpleton

don’t you kno anything?”

but that’s alrite i supose

as it goes

when the last bel on the last day tolls (ahem)

and the long vac. and the sumer

are one.

 

 

JB

22/05/97 

With gratitude and thanks to Nick Sketch esq. without whom (grammar) this would not have been.

© James Barnes.

Comments

[vlion.livejournal.com]

The abuse of english there makes my eyes hurt. I can't read it. Really. I can't.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Sorry m'dear, this sort of thing's an acquired taste. You'd have to know the original(s)* to find it funny - it may be that is doesn't travel at all.
Mea maxima culpa.

* Little Gidding & nigel molesworth, as you may have guessed.

Gidding Minor

[(Anonymous)]

Good one, Jim.
As you advised I've been gradually working through the blogs from the beginning. Some funny, some interesting, some moving, all worthwhile. Particularly enjoyed this tribute. While I remember, as well as my tattered Molesworth paperbacks and the Complete Eliot you bought me my library also contains one copy of Sinfest which you may wish to reclaim next time you're visiting this neck of the woods.
Robin