The Teacher’s Prayer, (Bicester, Left in 87).

The teachers, the tutors,

the staff, the head, the unpaid support workers

all bend their head in silent prayer,

know that the God of school simply doesn’t care

about their plight

their lot in life,

their unsaid collective fear

that there will never be a person to emerge from any year

who will make the school stand out

give the badge and crest some polish and stout

who they can hold up as a shining example,

the one person for whom they can, with gushing pride, let new pupils sample

that this is what happens when you pay your dues

you can be worthy of being a statue, a herald, a scholarly muse.

 

Our father, the god of chalk and dust,

of two eyes in the back of the head, to catch errant smokers we must,

especially when they don’t share their ill gotten gains

and pretend to matron that they can’t be punished because of phantom pains

to the god of the school field,

where we wish we could with authority wield,

the same type of sadistic intent

and let them do two hours of sport in their pants before being home sent,

the young female teachers all hearts a glow

as they smile with evil at the punishment administered for running slow

and the old war horse head, fought in the war,

in a Naffi, doling out rotten spuds, now laying down the law

as he sees fit

and knows that his pupils will never give a shit.

 

Our father, our lord of maths, trig, cosine and division

let us please have one we don’t dismember with cruel derision,

who like a beacon shines brightly in the pupil fog

and to who makes our time as a seemingly worthless cog

just that little bit sweeter and nice

to have a Sir, a Dame, an O.B.E. is that too heavy a price

for planning lessons in which might spark a notion

that could see peace across many an ocean

our lord, let this nine a.m. bell sound

and let us not be driven, sanity prevailing, into the ground,

we do not ask a lot as we stamp out any sign of the individual

and certainly rage against the kid who is cool.

Dear lord, we do your collective bidding, our day off and future pay rise

are yours to keep, if at least today, everybody wears their school ties.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015