Mocks
Huddled into football hats and scarves
In their desk terraces,
Stoned on cold and boredom
With fifty two minutes still to go
And nothing left to write about or remember,
Our examinees shuffle and stare
Like a grim crowd at Norwich City
Waiting for a goal that never comes.
In the roof of this breezeblock leisure dome
Propellors flap like aircraft that can't fly.
In one corner, two heaters nibble a glacier.
The floor - a parky one - is marked for badminton
But not for inter-desk ice hockey
As we clatter across it dispensing paper.
And this long siege itself mocks everything - Barbarossa,
Frozen Storage... everything except exams anyway.
January 5 1998
Mocks. The sad thing about this surrealistic caricature of a modern comprehensive is that not one word is fictional. You couldn't write it - but I have to work there!
