Bill Griffiths: School

Tiny things
we ran away from

Like terrapins
and barely mote-size
about to be

There is a new process of context
will you be A or B or C or D or E?
How near to ten will you get?

Scraggy wailing beings
I have hole in jumper
By neat spangly girl-beings
Ours is equal mouths

The elk of multiplication
he: a square on the back wall

Be patient, be quiet
God in his landscape
makes you, this is pre-prison:
there is so much that is bigger

Will the wolf engulf all?
Will the loyal live?
Is the story.

There is smog to collect going to an' coming from
collect the sounds of the hedge in a fork
it turns grey

Golden Christmas
someone still someone
in the fire dark
ever excellent

till after 10 out of 10
you are 11.

It is fair
the fairy-clever genetic inheritance
the sign of the British race

There are mock jewels
and mock marks
illnesses
and only mute types of feelings

Say it leads to grand free grown beings
with fists and breasts
generating money
that is royalty

And you think:
I no more shake and claw
and scream.