This blog is a book mark for me of the past and the present. However, I can't always write what I want to write...not without fictionalizing it to the point where it would no longer be a book mark. Someone sent me a poem which reminded me of two poems of the past.

One I wrote to my principal - the pattern of which was stolen from Leonard Cohen:

The Song of the Chaperone

Come, my brothers
Let us chaperone dances
Let us find our true calling
Let us invade the girls’ washrooms!
Let us demand our rights
Let us become exalted (a reduced workload in return for our services?)
Let us enter into the spirit of things
Let us drink coffee before, after and during the etceteras
Let us make students chaperone our dances
Let us make them pay for the privilege (Mantovani during the coffee breaks?)
Let us demand music composed for our entrance (executive washrooms?) (tiaras and crowns?)
Let us have attendance sheets singed at the door (perhaps robes for long service?) (thrones on the balcony for comfortable viewing?)
Let us illuminate the dark corners of the gym
Let us harass couples for the hell of it
Let us demand tables in order to collect fee (Do black cats count?)
Let us have a white book
Let us fill it with the names of those who behave
Let us harass those who behave
Let us publish their names in the library
Let us chaperone the librarians
Let us demand roller skates (for increased mobility?)
Let us find sanity
Let us think positively.

But my principal's response is an indication of the richness of my teaching experience and the people who were my leaders.

Sonnet to Patricia
(with apologies to W.S.)

Shall I camper thee to a Poet’s muse?
Thou hast perception deeper sure than that.
Transparent though I thought my latest ruse,
Confess more plain I will to please dear Pat.
Our Mary has me beaten that is clear,
Though talks parental I have had so many,
And sifts to schools that lie not very near,
All stratagems were scarcely worth a penny.
I would not claim for burst of inspiration,
An independent study for our sweet.
It was, in fact, an act of desperation,
A hair’s breadth from admission of defeat.
While you and I work helping students pass,
I’ll never claim for gold what’s truly brass.

John Jared