Hangman With The Teacher Poem by Kevin Patrick

R_ T_ _E_




It was a Tuesday painted Friday
by wanton act of tragedy
When punctual Mr. Miller, laconically sat
Looking on his wards he silently wept
He sighed with contempt
of a lifetime of regret
Meditating sorrow in his morning Earl Grey tea
Looking through the window
at tears of rain rang from the pang
And the sky was mourning grey


A middle age man he was tall and rather fair
Angular face, with drawn pink cheeks
The formal decorum of accountant attire
Wore a striped shirt with a founded pocket pen
An emerald striped tie gave his statues duke
Aristocratic gallantry withered by the chords of life storms.
Eyes pinpoints of coal, recoiled stygian streams
Sullen geniality masquerading animosity
A follower of Minerva measured is life in coffee spoons

We converged to our desks, like sheep to the cull
Meager creatures with desolate manners
Little Nero’s with so pause for concern
Sessions began with an alternative directive
He stood as Napoleen as waterloo fell
Resolute as the earth sunk around his crown
His eyes beat malice, but his mouth cracked
“No math today, or gym time fun”
, he perched his lips, and smiling wide
‘Were going to play a spelling game”






He took the chalk, and drew seven lines
Turned on us with malevolent surprise
“It starts with “r and ends in “D”
One more hint, Ill consent to you
there are in place three vowels
Guess the word you get a prize”
He moved with the passion of a drunken lynx,
Staring upon us, with malevolent expression.
Which our egos deflected the hidden intention

The time was confided with a silent viscosity
Crystallized like Cygnus, we were swans asphyxiated
Not inhabiting the dimension of Mr. Miller’s fragile mind
Past the hour glass canvass were sanity sat abandoned
Like a carton of milk passed the second weeks notice
Which no one had the courtesy to give Mr. Miller this indulgence?


Jenny with freckles and pinched cheeks to match
Raised up her hand and took a guess without a scratch
“ Is it A? ” she pronounced with calculating effect
To obscure the monsoon from her peers catawahiling
With stoic contrivance and inertial lassitude
Mr. Miller eyes contriving ejected a “no”

Than Stephan the imp, with a brown nose to pinch
Followed the crumbs that Jenny had marked
Said “E” with reserve of bomb disposal cop
Cautious of the fusion from explosive peers.
With radiant affection of a dog who found a bone
“Mr. Miller bone jovially replied an ecstatic “correct”

Dropping the letters into their singular compartments
They were double “e”s second place first and last
Now that the our sphinx had shown us a sign
It was time to eliminate Mr. Miller’s variables.
So flung Eager hands of cats set loose
To trap and cage the teacher’s mouse.
Though, he ensnared us to fatten us up.
And serve us from our mindless musings

Letters flung like bullets divorced from a gun
Hitting the target or diverged from the mark
With frantic engagement of a chalk conductor
Mr Miller filled boxes of words decomposed
While relishing with passion the completion of the puzzle
Licking his lips, and sweeten with conviction
He Stood back to reveal the day’s holy word
The puzzle solved, our minds ran void
to the entree of “Retired”

Stepping back from his work, the teacher smirked
“Do you want to know the special prize? ”
Our conscious emitted a spark tone to run,
but our greed over took and won
We gallantly replied yes,
With superficial courtesy for token modesty
So with poise of Socrates,
His face withered in cryptic wisdom
Our teacher replied “I’ll show you the prize”
Fin- his deed was done
He went to his desk to pull out supplies
Rope with a knot of a hangman’s mark
Before drowning the nectar of some Jack Daniel’s
When toned the final gulp, he looked savagely
And replied “time to play old Isaac’s laws”

With Zombie animation he climbed onto the desk
Silence resided the doors of our mouths
Our Mirrored reflections stagnated no duress
He may poled the rope through a line in the ceiling
Checked the strength of sailors precision
Than crowned it to his neck for elegant affect

We sat open gaped
to this modern bush of fire
Dispelled by our teacher
pagan pleasure festivities
Looked upon his disciples
no rules to compose
His shadow to meet him,
cast the line to his crooked path
To a faraway station
and chartered by Charon


He smiled like a harlequin cut from the stings
Saying “Watch me children Ill show you physics”
A wingless eagle, his mass kissed gravity
Than descended momentum whiplashes his neck
Proving Newton’s second law for dramatic effect
As our eyes beat mentally to take this technicality
Staring a rag doll in a two piece suits and empty pocket pen

Statues we were in the seats of our desks,
Grappling the consequence of public sector employment
learning physics has more fury
than a women who is scorned
Watching our teacher
now a fleshy pendulum
Our minds calculating the correct words to express
Astounding the checkmate for our old classroom lord
Who retired in more ways
than was possible to express

Than Heather with the hawks nose spoke for the rest
“Oh dear the teachers gone what should we do today”
“Call for help, go home and maybe play a game,
There was debate in the manner, as the students conspired
Several left to find some relief,
Others decided it was home for today
While the rest stayed to play
with their new found pinnate
Dress as their teacher now a smelling mannequin.

As the page of the day turned into brown dusk
The antiques of moral pageantry had elucidated us
Kings of ideals can be slaves to harsh facts
Goodman are cursed by the great foe of life’s math
When the solution is ennui from the happiness equation
And the public’s medicated on vanities convalescents
But all I could think through the morals being spelled
Was that spelling games had lost all their ephemeral appeal.