05 February 2025

#5 - Seven Ages: Schoolboy

 

Thomas Sword Good, Study of a Boy

With smiles and hopeful airs, first day of school:

crisp uniform and unfamiliar tie;

new disciplines, a timetable, and rules

of social commerce; cliques to codify.

Will tests in Maths and Science be your fuel?

Athletics, French, or Music get you by?

Perhaps – like me – you’ll reach the peak of ‘cool’?

(and – decades later – know that that’s a lie.)

This skinny, gobby tryhard spent his terms

deflecting – with his gags – the fists of churls;

and, quoting Shakespeare, and the Diet of Worms,

theatrically failed to dazzle girls.

Pubescent verse, hubristic faith alone:

a portrait of a man not fully grown.

 

AWB

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