The jelly fell off and slid beyond
All the dogs and cats swimming in the pond
Tom and Jerry were chewing unborn babies
And ran and ran to try and catch rabies
We write on our arms what records to play
We truly starve as wellies might say
Run to find the blood of a few
Try to catch unceasing spew
The wait in anger for the whiskey drop
As they get younger their faces flop
Now the shits run running from your arse
Shitting at the back of the class
This is what Maths does to you
Sends you mental through and through

10th August 2023 – The poetic entries for 1984 are incorrectly dated as I’ve just taken random starting points for them. This poem was written during another particularly boring Maths class (see my diary entries for how much I loved my Maths classes!). I had finished school sometime around May or June though. The poems are in order though. I know this as I hand-wrote them in order into a duplicate book sometime in the late 80s.
The line ‘we write on our arms what records to play’ was real. I would plan what music I wanted to listen to when I got home like this. Writing on our hands and arms was a big thing (which I guess, kind of naturally, turned into getting tattoos) for many of us adolescent kids and I can see my students doing the same now.