call me buy-curious…

…but when i had to stop for fuel at port wakefield i saved $3 out of the $100 bill with my coles docket and the service station guy asked if i wanted to try the new flavour magnum icecream for only $3 today & i thought what the hell and i wasn’t surprised that it was smaller than i expected and a little too sweet and the chocolate wasn’t dark and i asked myself why after a whole lifetime the advertisers still suck me in like this and that the dream is always better than the reality…

Retired Principal

Each year he supervised the lives

of a thousand students and forty teachers.

Asking questions. Seeking answers.

Analysis.

He retired. He travelled the world.

His world shrank.

Dialysis.

Every third day tied to a bed

watching circumnavigation of blood

leaving his body, returning.

A robot kidney buying him

another three days.

His wife was a principal too.

Did you get the milk?

His answer, irrelevant.

In ten minutes she will ask

Did you get the milk?

Alzheimers has stolen the Teachers Answers

from the back of the book.

Now Questions are irrelevant.

Answers are not

forthcoming.

I guess this began as a reflection on the thousands of kids I met over many years of teaching…

…from the list of children…

< those who despite years of parental bubble-wrap will hurt themselves on sharp edges

< those who learn to use their smile as a self-serving weapon

< those who are never remembered or soon forgotten through their limited intelligence and dull compliance

< those who challenge too often, push envelopes, stress teachers and become great successes

< those with overbearing violent fathers who will be submissive for twenty years before unexpectedly murdering someone

< those passive resistors who expend more

energy avoiding work

than work itself

< those who decide their future aged five,

quietly and doggedly achieve it

< the child with uncontrollable rage who is patiently and firmly guided to succeed

< the child not remembered for brilliance or inspiration

who will one day change the world

The politician

Going forward we’d be backward if

we didn’t have a goal to look forward to.

Let me make this crystal clear. Crystal clear.

We’ll take our whole raft of measures on board,

unpack it and run with it. Everything is on

the table and I’m not ruling anything in or out.

I’ve said this before.

Let’s be consistent about this

going forward.

Down through the years I’ll hit the ground

running an uphill battle on the slippery slope

on the downward spiral.

We’ve been inundated and left

hung out to dry

in the 24 hour spin cycle.

But it’s crystal clear.

Going forward we’ll be,

er, going forward.

It’s a cliché poem. I was tired of thinking about “the world’s your oyster” so I changed the point-of-view.

pearl

i am a pearl

and the oyster

is my universe.