A.J. Ryan - Back In The School Yard

I remember them days
back in the school yard
started bored, scraping my rubber soles
On the hard, rough, dirty black tarmac.

It would be 8.55 a.m.
I was in school first
the sweet tunes of the birds' songs
amplified in every corner of the yard

it was a wide square
with low walls on one side
following a trail up to the sports shed
door and front walls made by my father

someone would hide the torn
ripped sponge balls soaking
up the rain it rolled through
hidden in an isolated prickly bus

with the principal relaxing, drinking coffee
making his breath stench
like blue bread
we'd take out the ball and play

many times the principal took the balls
but we'd soon be loaded again like a gun
playing football against the office wall
almost a morning routine.

At lunch the jokes were shared
playing games football again
and the mayhem arose
teachers getting into scraps

with students writing about them
on t-shirts, principal's
face poppy red anger rushing through
the pulsating veins

there were fights oh Lord they were
two messers two families
from different backgrounds whatever really
nothing was the biggest

their sizes or the fights
but it's the little things that
peck away like woodpeckers at the back
of my mind.

Them memories
stuck to me like glue,
those times
back in the school yard.

A.J. Ryan

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/back-in-the-school-yard/