Tag: poetry

Haywire – 25th July 1983

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Beuagh, guts are lying everywhere
And my brains are going spare
Another physics lesson, I’m going to start a fire
Haywire, haywire, haywire, haywire

24th Apr 2023 – Mr Hayward was our Physics teacher and struggled to keep us nasty, disobedient kids under control. Naturally, we called him Haywire.
One time I was burning incense at the back of the class and when he saw the smoke he ran to us and threatened to take us to the headmaster for smoking marijuana in class. Scared at the prospect of going to the headmaster’s office we told him it was just incense and after a while, he calmed down, but that was his undoing. From then on we knew we could get away with anything in his classes.
For the Easter holiday in 1984, we (Rupes, Jez, Jim and Muz) stole a stroboscope out of the cupboard on the last day of school and had a party in my room where we made ourselves dizzy and broke the varispeed dial. Not to be disheartened we fixed it by shoving a matchstick into the shaft and got it going again. As we would only be at school intermittently for our exams from that time onwards we had no intention of returning this equipment but we ended up thinking it would be funnier if we could put it back without anyone noticing and so that’s what we did.
Needless to say, I failed my Physics exam and quite possibly most of our class did.
I found out a few years after leaving school Mr Hayward died of a heart attack whilst playing squash. Really, I had fond memories of him and though I hated physics I always enjoyed his class.

Hypothesis – 5th July 1983

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Hypothesis

Hypotheory about the world
Change society to suit me
Everybody will be running round
And nobody will be free
Hypothesis-piss-hypothepiss

Too Bad

Too bad for you, you stupid fool
I will change, change the rule
And you will sit, sit back and cry
And will laugh, laugh at your boring life

Salt

You are salt of the earth
Pretty since your birth
But now you are a demented moron
When someone made you drop the bomb
Salt of the earth/Salt on the earth

Oh Yeah – 20th June 1983

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Oh Yeah

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no

11th Apr 2023 – Hardly a work of art but this was the chant of myself, Rupert, Jeremy and Jim and I can still hear our teenage voices clearly. We hated being at school but we had each other.

Jimmy

I knew a kid called Jimmy
He was pretty skinny
Until he got so thin
He did himself in
Skinny Jimmy, oh!

11th Apr 2023 – To the tune of Jimmy Jimmy by the Undertones. Jim was the boy in town in our little school clique. Rupert, Jeremy and I were out in the sticks.

Before we had motorbikes we did a lot of push biking to visit each other though rarely would we go into town. Wimborne was hardly attractive for 15 and 16-year-olds and although we wanted to be where things were going on we found much more entertainment in the countryside than in town.

This changed later when we got motorbikes but still, we knew we could get away with so much more in our quiet little villages with fewer people around.

And Jim was skinny though no skinnier than the rest of us. When I went back to the UK and met Jeremy and Rupert again (around 2015 I think) we were all still thin though I had the biggest beer belly which they did comment on. Jez and Rupes have kept themselves quite trim in comparison.

Atom

A little atom spinning round
I can touch the ceiling and the ground
But if you try and find me, I can’t be found
Cos I will confuse and I will confound

11th Apr 2023 – My ambition at this age was to be a punk rock star. I had given up playing the clarinet after a year or so of learning and never took on any other instrument.

Sometimes I think it was out of arrogant pride that I never took on anything. I didn’t want to be seen as not good at something. I wanted people to think that I was the best at the things that I did. I thought people would laugh at me if I tried to do something and I wasn’t very good at it. Where did I get that thought process from?

I was pretty good at most sports until my smoking, drinking and laziness to improve got the better of me.

Anyway, as I had no musical ability to speak of I would have to be the singer and of course, being the centre of attention seemed attractive too. I lost this bravado badly during my late teens and early 20s though and can’t really explain why.

As the singer I thought that I would have to be the lyricist too so I started writing lyrics as much as possible. Of course, they were very rudimentary at this time but I felt totally inspired by all the music I was consuming and the attitude that anyone could do it.