|
School Shakespeare
Mister Potterton assigns us roles
as royalty while rain
splashes against the window
and we fidget in our seats.
We act out the scheming of the powerful
and struggle to recite our own language,
watching the clock
for the minute hand to release us
from classroom tyranny.
The pages in our books
are so thin
we can see through them.
The words in our mouths
don’t taste right.
Our teacher wants more feeling,
but we don’t feel as beautiful
as the English Shakespeare wrote,
surrounded as we are
by red brick houses and the grey
slate roofs that match
the colour of the sky,
and knowing the headmaster
is on patrol
with his black cape and cane
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries.
Wrench is Buckingham for a day,
the boy whose voice is water
when the lines demand
a port matured in wood.
Worrall is a giggling Gloucester,
scheming to be king,
unfit for state and majesty.
Our teacher, in despair, demands
a sterner tone;
I will converse with iron-witted fools
And unrespective boys,
he bellows through our inattentiveness.
He picked out Higgins,
who is strong and tall
as Lady Anne to say,
These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks,
and Whetton, full of mischief,
for a queen lamenting
My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!
We are the children of industry,
of textile mills and factories
that spit the workers out
for fair England’s sake!
From Lord’s Prayer to the bell
that sends us home
we think ourselves miscast
in sins that pluck on sin,
but stay the course until
the period ends
and we exeunt,
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.
David Chorlton lived in England and Austria before moving to Phoenix in 1978.
His paintings, mostly watercolour, have been exhibited in Austria and the United States.
Collections of his poetry include FORGET THE COUNTRY YOU CAME FROM from Singular Speech Press,
and OUTPOSTS from Taxus Press in Exeter, England. Essays and reviews have appeared in The Arizona Republic,
National Catholic Reporter, Poet Lore, and in several online publications. His chapbook, COMMON SIGHTINGS,
was a recent winner in the Palanquin Press Competition. Recently David has had poems
in 3rd Muse and Thunder Sandwich and Adirondack Review, all online publications.
He continues to appreciate most the Arizona landscape and its birds.
Slowly, he is beginning a new series of paintings in his visual arts life.
He continues to paint in Phoenix, trying to discover something lyrical between
the high-rise buildings and the houses beneath them. This is his twenty-fourth year in Phoenix,
and he still struggles to adjust!
David Chorlton grew up in industrial Manchester, England, before moving
to Vienna in 1971 and staying there for seven years. His travel around Europe
during that time left him with a full bank of impressions that continue to surface in his work.
The Southwest provided the eye-opening experience of stunning scenery and an awareness of
nature that he was not prepared for. His short collection of poems, Common Sightings, with
a desert theme, won a Palanquin Press award in 2001, and a new book, A Normal Day Amazes
Us appeared in 2003 from Kings Estate Press.
Email: David Chorlton
Return to Table of Contents
|
