A study of good posture (and hendecasyllabics, maybe)

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A study of good posture (and hendecasyllabics, maybe)

Brian James
Member

since 2005-06-26

Posts 147
Winnipeg

0 posted 2006-08-01 04:58 AM

Maybe it was our own imaginations,
Or the work of a superstitious conscience
That has given us reason to be frightened
Of the quiet and slumber in the classroom.
Sitting slack in the chair that's been assigned me
Since the start of my schooling, I'm still anxious,
Scared that it'll collapse at any moment.
I'm not sure, but I think it's from a story
We were told when our Nanners used to visit,
When she'd scrawl with an eardrum-cracking squiggle
On the once-very-busy classroom chalkboard
Diagrams on the subtleties of sitting.

"You, the students, are what this school depends on!
Look up, look at the ceiling just above you---
Tell me, how do you think that it's supported?
No, it isn't the walls you see around you,
(Those are simply to keep you all from leaving),
Nor does anything less than literal hold it,
But your heads! (and she'd point at hers, while talking).
Sit straight, holding your back up like pillar,
If you've any regard for your own safety!"

Nan's been gone for a while now, and I've noticed
How the students have started shifting shoulders,
Cracking collarbones, sliding back their bottoms,
Back and into the cozy little corner
Of their ninety-degree-at-angle places.
I can't help but be worried we're in danger,
That we're all to be crushed as she had warned us,
By the menacing figure of the ceiling.

I had pictured it falling like a comet
With the terrible drama I remember
Felt by Samson as he destroyed the pillars
Of the Philistine temple, both for vengeance
And for some kind of holy indignation
He had felt for a sin I can't remember.

No, it's drooping as if it's filled with slumber,
Such as students remember, that have listened
(While they struggled with trembling, sleepy eyelids)
To the lessons that Nan has written for us.
She was saddened, perhaps, to see our pupils
Disappear by the wrath of heavy eyelids.
We have, being her pupils, maybe also
Vanished, due to some mystic hypnotism,
Which betrays the involvement of a demon
Who, with nimbleness of a lingering housefly,
Jumps from eyelid to eyelid, spewing sorcery,
Thus distracting the children from their lessons.

I can't help but imagine Nan's still out there,
Peeking into a window from the schoolyard,
With an overall optimistic musing
That our memory might remind us of her,
And our eyes will be opened by the healing
Of her ancient and once-forgotten wisdom.
Then, as though we were turning back the hours,
She could watch with her eyes child-like and gaping
As her pupils rose eagerly to greet her,
Begging her to begin her daily lesson.

Friends, I tell you, if we could ever do this,
We'd hear wakefulness echoed in her laughter,
As she scribbles in diagrams on the blackboard.
And I promise she'd stand a little taller,
Somewhat richer herself from her old lessons.

Munda
Member Elite

since 1999-10-08

Posts 3544
The Hague, The Netherlands

1 posted 2006-08-01 04:31 PM

Does this mean NO spitballs?

So this is what a "hand me a case of syllables"looks like, uh?

Ofcourse I can do this too! (I think - I hope - I pray!)

Great poem by the way.

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