by David Roche
When they’ve peppered their shorts with some dirt.
“Don’t touch him, you big bully!”
(She cannot discern fair game.)
She always just assumes the worst:
That it’s me they’re out to maim.
But the one that’s most annoying,
And sadly that’s my dad,
Is the one who could do better
And was a real star as a lad.
He always brags that in his day
He was the best because… (zzz zzz)
Remarkably, the older he gets
The better he once was.
So why don’t you all just stay at home
Instead of bringing us shame?
The one thing you can’t get in your head
Is that it’s only a game!
Finding a Mate
How on earth does a Boy meet a Girl
When both want to keep the risk low?
They have to remove all embarrassing moves,
The worst nightmare’s their first disco.
It starts long before the occasion
When you have to choose how to dress.
Is it white (not a wedding!) or black (no one’s dead!)?
It’s just like a big game of chess.
The floor is like a chequered board,
Each side unchartered territory.
The main objective is to cross the floor
(And not just to find the lavatory).
The “teams” contain many different types:
There’s a Queen – such a precious stone.
The King moves to guard her, one step at a time,
And acts as her chaperone.
The Queen can do whatever she wants;
She owns the discotheque.
She covers the King, and like a handbrake,
She loves to keep him in check.
There’s the Bishop who’s ever so confident,
He can move with a pace that is magical.
But he’ll usually spoil it because it’s the toilet
On the far side that sent him diagonal.
And the Knight is a curious animal
Whose first move is always decisive.
Then he’ll run out of bottle, and sidestep (full throttle)
In case the response is derisive.
The Rook is a straightforward person.
So it seems, but he’s AKA Castle.
He’ll be on your wing, then he’ll swap with the King.
(He can be a bit of an arsehole.)
But the rest of us in the serried ranks,
Us pawns, we are predictable.
We can start double-time then seem past our prime;
We fear that we’re not delectable.
But if we can keep on going,
Keep a check on our emotion,
If we’re confident enough and can just hang tough,
At the end we can get a promotion.
This allows you to be confident,
You can be whomever you want.
You’ve got all the moves, which indubitably proves
You’re a cool cat, and so nonchalant.
The reward is you find a partner.
The slow dance is not a disaster.
The strains of Titanic need not render panic
Because you’ve become a Grandmaster.
Dad Got a C- for My Homework
My dad is so competitive.
He shows it every day.
He has to beat his children
At work, at rest or play.
He tells us it’s a “life rule”:
The fittest will survive.
He’ll never let us win, at all,
As long as he’s alive.
And as we kids get older,
And get better in our schools,
I’ve begun to see Dad struggle,
So he changes all the rules.
But one thing does stay constant
Amongst these legal fads,
And that is my dad is up for it most
Against all the other dads.
And never is that clearer
Than when homework comes around.
Especially if it’s a project
And he’s on his own home ground.
“Aaah!” he’d say (an ominous start),
“When I was about your size
Mine was fantastic (with sticky-back plastic)
And won a prestigious prize…”
But need some help on the everyday stuff?
It’s a different kettle of fish.
His knowledge is partial, a bit out of date,
And his facts are accurate-ish.
“πr2 is area
and 2πr circumference.”
But joking apart, what he knows by heart,
Has led to misplaced confidence.
When it comes to French it’s irregular verbs
That always seem to obsess him.
He’ll remember a rhyme, that they did in his time,
And proceed to give me a lesson.
But “La Derniere Vacance” will just leave him askance
If you ask him to help with translation.
He’ll revert to type and believe his own hype
With “Monty arrived at the Station…”*
But offer a project with creative design,
Construction or building or such,
And he’ll go all manic, and build the Titanic,
Taking weeks while saying, “Don’t touch!”
Geography is still all Ox Bow Lakes
And glacial U-shaped valleys.
His capital cities are totally wrong.
His dillies are twinned with his dallies.
History is just a handful of dates
That all end with a 66.
The Norman Conquest started it all
When the French came and ruined the mix.
The Great Fire of London was next on his list.
Pudding Lane was aflame at the first.
Then he gets all excited: “…that’s when West Ham United
Won the World Cup with a hat-trick from Hurst.”
With English he’s really no help at all
For grammar or for spelling.
It’s “i” before “e”, except after “c”.
“Weird science,” I say, and he’s yelling.
His Shakespeare is a little sparse;
He only knows Macbeth.
“Will these hands ne’er be clean?” (Re-enacting the scene.)
He does make my mum think of death…
But give him an old shoebox,
And it’s A Night at the Palladium.
With yoghurt pots and old loo rolls
He’ll build an Olympic stadium.
And you’re not allowed to help him
In case you get it wrong.
And maybe – the worst – he may not come first
And some other dad will get the gong.
His science is not very good.
His physics not very physical.
Chemistry just leaves him cold
With evidence empirical.
Biology is all very well
With animals, breeding and birth.
He’d much rather see it all on TV,
Watching repeats of Planet Earth.
But…
I found one of his old school books once
From all those years ago.
His teacher thought he was a dunce!
So much for his ego.
She’d written in the margin too.
She’d marked in big red letters:
“What can I say about your ‘work’?
Except you could do better.
“But a curate’s egg has some good parts;
At least yours was not long.
Most of the time you don’t answer the question,
And when you do, you’re wrong.”
* French Irregular verbs:
Monty Arrived At the stati
on while All the Rest Returned with Tom.
Pa’s Moorish Descent gives him a Venturesome Sort of Nature…
Monter, Arriver, Etre, Aller, Rester, Tourner, Tomber,
Partir, Mourir, Descendre, Venir, Sortir, Naître.
The Best Advice
The best advice is simple
And so I’ll keep it short.
The only rule you need in school
Is DON’T GET CAUGHT!
The Sports Day
It must be our Sports Day,
It’s pouring with rain.
It’s got to be cancelled.
They can’t do this again.
The car park’s quite full
Though it’s chucking it down.
People struggling with rugs –
If they use them, they’ll drown.
The boys milling round,
Everyone looks dejected,
With the obvious exception
If a win is expected.
It’s already started.
“Oh no, are we late?
I did say to you, darling,
We must leave by eight.”
“But no, you knew best,
Just one more minute in bed.
Half an hour with the paper
And look where it led.”
We start with the sprints:
“On your marks, get set, go…”
We wait for the gun –
Does it work? Of course, no.
This causes a problem
for the formidable females,
Reading their stopwatches
As if they were emails.
It looks expertly done
With them all on their ladder,
But the order’s all wrong
And the timekeeping badder.
“Just watch out for smoke
From the gun,” say the leaders
As the boys run right past them
At one hundred metres.
They invent the times
And are all sworn to silence.
It’s not a school record,
If it was there’d be violence.
The funny thing is
That it just doesn’t matter
Because all of the parents
Are having a natter.
They’re not paying attention
To the field or the track.
They’re stuffed in the grandstand
Right up at the back.
Then the sun deigns to visit.
Let battle commence!
It’s a sprint with the rugs
To the hill by the fence.
Who’s got the best milieu?
Have we got the best scene?
We can’t see the races
But can see and be seen.
The main event is now on.
Start the parade.
It’s time for the picnic.
Is it bought or home-made?
It’s a delightful paté.
“Says canard on the lid.”
Or, imagine a pork pie
Or Spam (God forbid).
Sympathy here is the
Worst of the goads.
“No, do help yourself.
We’ve absloootly loads.”
She’s ruthless, a sadist
Who kills with a crumb.
Who is this assassin?
Competitive Mum.
“Going on hols?”
“Yes, we’re off to Mauritius.”
The stakes are up high
And it’s now getting vicious.
All through this time,
Way back on the track,
They’ve been running the races
And not looking back.
“Is it nearly all over?”
All parents are hoping.
Then they bring out the hurdles
And we all end up moping.
Because they all need arranging,
Each one in its place,
Just so some short kid
Can fall flat on his face.
And they’re so bloomin’ fiddly
With extendable legs
And those horrible, stubborn,
Retractable pegs.
Hang on! It’s the relays.
We know they’re on last.
And then it’s the presents
And it’ll be in the past.
But then there’s the waiting.
“Mum, can’t we just go?
I didn’t win anything.”
“Well… you just never know.”
There’s speeches and prizes,
A Victor Ludorem
For some smart-arse kid
Whose parents adore him.
But not only that,
He got another four prizes
And three silver cups
The size of Devizes.
The family stagger
Under the weight of their booty.
We wave with fixed grins
(And don’t think they’re snooty).
It’s a nice happy ending
To a very long day though.
As they get to their Jaguar,
We get to our Polo.
We’ve endured four whole hours
But it had to be worth it
Just to see that their car
Had a puncture. How perfect.
No Room for Us on the Bus
A full day at school is quite long enough,
But it’s often the journey that makes it so tough.
It takes me an hour to go door to door.
OK, I exaggerate, but it often feels more.
The commuting to school is not very funny:
You mislay your pass and you’ve forgotten your money.
You beg and you borrow from a mate for the fare,
And he wants it with interest – any kindness is rare.
The bus is all full when it comes to your stop.
You decide to walk up the hill to the top.
And smack in between the two stops is the bit
Where you are when the stupid bus passes you. Shit!
So you start to run but the driver ignores you.
The schoolkids on board make faces that bore you.
The grannies, in your seat, peer through their glasses,
Taking rides, just for fun, on their pensioners’ passes.
But on the way home…
Our uniform’s worse than a team’s tribal dress.
It invites thugs to line up and make it a mess.
Just whose idea was it to make us a target?
To be victims for every bully and large git.
We’re running the gauntlet right from the school gates.
To get to the bus stop, you must go with your mates.
As outsiders we have to outnumber the locals;
There’s safety in numbers when you’re up against yokels.
They’re after your Oyster, they’re after your mobile.
You must have them hidden and keep a low profile.
Just wear your school shoes, and bury your trainers.
Keep anything valuable in padlocked containers.
When you do get home safely, without the collision,
Your reward is an hour of Geogers revision.
You forget to get back the quid you did borrow,
And, joy of joy, it’s the same thing tomorrow.
Social Not-Working
My mum’s signed up to Facebook.
She wants to be a spy.
There’s only one reason, and it’s total high treason:
She can only have signed up to pry.
My mum’s always trying to poke me.
She wants to be my “friend”.
My privacy setting is clearly not letting
Her see what I do at my end.
I’m currently “in a relationship” –
My kindred soul’s a sweet talker.
My mum has not met them (to personally vet them),
That’s why she�
��s a wannabe stalker.
The photos are the worst thing;
She could see just what I am doing.
It’s my personal dominion (InMyHumbleOpinion),
Would she mind if she saw the tattooing?
She’s only trying to protect me (she says)
From dirty old perverts and freaks.
But that’s just too cosy, she’s just being nosy,