In secondary school
there were A classes
and B classes,
I was in a B class,
where they put the dumb kids,
crazy kids,
weirdos,
all from the same class—
working class.
Justin was
a country boy living in Dublin,
so they put him in with us,
he had more money than us,
he had pockets full of sweets.
We took them from him
by intimidation or force,
‘Justin, give us a sweet,’
‘Justin, give us your sweets.’
David, he blushed
when he had to read in class,
stuttered,
stumbled,
couldn't pronounce words,
everyone snickered.
Charlie could kick the shit out of everyone
in our class and the other classes,
probably the masters as well,
he got shot dead a few years ago
and left on the Ballymun road.
Nearly everyone had a nickname:
Lamber, Noddy, Parkie, Toweller,
Roger (he had big buck teeth).
Then there was Lovely,
that was his real name,
‘That's a lovely jacket, you've got,’
‘Lovely goal you scored there,’
‘Are you one of the Mr. Men?’
And there were scraps,
thumbtacks on chairs,
chewing gum in your hair,
wedgies on the stairs,
bullies and the bullied,
laughs and howls,
smashed windows,
hundreds of lines to be written,
detention, torture, intimation,
horrible grey uniforms,
chaos, madness,
diesel hash
and butane cans in the jacks.
Oh, and some education,
and poetry,
‘O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved,’
I liked it secretly,
I still like it,
and now I'm proclaiming it,
proudly.
I'm a rhythm man,
I'm a rhyme man,
I'm a poet,
a poeta like Mickey Piñero
the junkie Christ,
and I'm turning all the chaos in the uniforms,
the torture in the lines,
the windows in the hash,
the howls in the butane gas,
I'm turning all of that
into
poetry.