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The essence of being

A letter to any listener

A letter to any listener

Hi there

How are you? How’s tricks? How’s the family, or not? How now brown cow! Any news? Well, apart from the usual nonsense…

[Blah blah blah]

Anyway, as for the teaching regulations I seem to have avoided their web for another while and am still in the white as far as invoicing goes but it’s becoming more and more difficult. If the companies are spooked then rather than jump through the legal hoops they’ll just jump ship. As far back as 2011 there was a change in the law which meant that companies to whom I issued invoices had to cover my health insurance payments. A funny thing about it was that in some cases this seemed not to be true, while others, believing the initial rumours, wanted instead to pay me in black. Two years on the companies that stayed with me have had no trouble so whatever shadow had passed over in those dark ’11s had dissipated…only to loom much larger as of Sept 1st this year…when, indeed, the law stated much more specifically that people of my disposition, the idiots-for-honesty, were most definitely dis-entitled to issue invoices with the trademark “nyelvoktatás” code. Instead in a frantic scramble for legitimacy another existing code was sought out and came in the guise of “egyéb oktatás”. That there is a clear distinction between the two is obvious in the way of spelling, and may even be supported semantically, but to say that what I actually do has gone from being “language” teaching to “other” rings of something sinister. I see myself in a coutroom some time down the line pleading innocence in the light of allegations of some newly contrived perversion as distinguished by an ever-enlightening-ruling-elite (the word government ringing too much of communist ideologies by that time). That my case will hinge on the ominous term “other education” will certainly be my downfall and as I am dragged away by my oppressors I will rage loudly and invoke the honest Hungarians now resident in Slovakia (and other Trianon treated regions) who at once in a darker past woke one morning to find themselves strangers in a strange land, and note that in my own demise I may take heart that I am not alone. A man made criminal, a man made foreigner, in my case to the profession that I once purported to be be qualified to do.

For now I do bid you adieu.

Martin of the Magyars

©TheHairyTeacher2013

And why not…

Questions, questions!

Who needs answers?

Who needs clarity

in the everflux?

Why do we search for guarantees,

and yet accept our evolution?

Shall we sometime reach a point

that will please us all no end?

Not if we are to remain, I say!

Not at all, unless we die…

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Arriving

Later than expected

I nursed the homeward journey to my taste.

I was quite early but as ever later than I’d like.

I wish’d the time to be manipulated but maybe now I have a reason,

but given none, I ‘d be mistaken to think it better.

I’d saddle side the trojan deity,

the flagrant half of my depravity:

secrets laid, a secret’s bared upon the soils of Spring time’s sowing.

I want an evening only dreaming,

the morning’s set a path for me.

I had a notion of my journey once before.

Upon the way to where it is I go

I feel the trembling, the loss of everything.

I miss the way it was when the oath (or path) was empty.

©TheHairyTeacher2013

 

Another Life

Another Christ has risen

Another fast forgotten

Another great day of celebration

That makes us better than them.

Another year has passed

Another chance is lost

Another reason to abhor

That stagnant church profusion.

Another child baptised

Another lamb to the lies

Another “soul” converted

To that hateful, spiteful, plan.

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Another thought

I know that once I made a promise to never stop loving,
but I’ve forgotten to whom to,
and I’ve broken it a hundred times.
Through the ages I have realised that it bothers me more –
how we are, us humans, than how we’d ever dare
to ignore it, with a distraction such as love.

It keeps us alive, it’s true, but I’ve also learnt of fascists
who’d rather have died than stop loving…
Am I the coward after all!

 

©TheHairyTeacher2013

An error

In skipping this the time still passed
the page left blank not long did last,
but recognised my error sown
returned again so- not alone.
And as the words and ink did dry
I wondered at my reason why
I did decide to choose to fill
the page that, forgot, could blank be still.

 

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Again a circle drawn

The night that takes me home could have been an evening,
but then the snows again appeared, deceiving.
And all the Spring incline once more a muddle
As snowdrift veils the snowmelt puddle.
Again the fields are white and all cars too.
The very Henry’s dream in negative hue.
The slow retirement -a childish glee.
Where age perceives its doom,
youth dreams infinity.

 

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Afternoon Tram

Afternoon tram, the smell of perfume, aftershave and youth.
Some more aged try blending in with the chaos,
and I’m reminded of what some students said:
“the old are so annoying.”
Am I old to them or am I still young if but mature?
Do I become old when I find them irritating?
No, they irritate each other! Don’t they?
Am I OLD if I even have to ask these questions?
My stop comes…

 

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Everything and

Picture this.
A very sunny day though not yet hot.
Still cool enough around the edges
to feel my short sleeves.
Sitting on a bench at a busstop waiting.
Behind me at the old chapel steps
three vagrants sit.
Chatting, loitering,
and one with a kitchen sink –
It’s steel skin shining in the promised heat.

 

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Tempus

Tick tock
a moment spent without hellos goodbyes:
indifference.
That just sheer chance that had us without a single thought.
And then we relinquished all our sense
and beckoned chatter, debate, discussion…
all in a guise.
With sudden haste
we watched the dreamy haze
against the lone strap sharpened;
we saw the moment
and its langour disappear.
Replaced by haste,
by waste,
by every other thing.
We were removed to this rank rhythm.
The tired mind, the floating heart,
now reeling –
they’re being wrenched apart.
Thump thump
the beat begins
the dukes are set
and into another aspect
we will breach.

 

Note of interest http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/put-up-your-dukes.html

 

©TheHairyTeacher2013

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