The students filed in and sat in their seats
a genuine few among liars and cheats
Some were festooned with regalia galore
buttons and badges and emblems of war
Some were corrupt while others were pure
some smelled like flowers, some like manure
"Everyone's equal and everyone's free
You to be you and me to be me."
That was their motto and that was their cry
That was their truth and that was their lie.
The teacher stood at the head of the class
calling the name of each lad and each lass.
Here said Delphinium. Here said Bernard.
Here Here said Tallulah and Jack Beauregard.
I'm present said Rudolph, me two said Lenore
me three said Bonita and Jim said me four.
While Evelyn said in a voice so demure
"I'll see you on that Jim and raise you two more."
Here here, said the teacher
You're all out of order
Stop changing your seat
Stop crossing the border
How, said the teacher, can you be Drew
when just minutes ago you claimed to be Hugh?
I heard you quite clearly from the back row,
your hand in the air, your voice like a crow
"That wasn't me Mam, I'm just who I said,
honest and true Mam, my name is Fred.
I've always been Fred, Mam
right from the beginning
I'd never lie because lying is sinning."
A big spit ball hit Fred in the head.
After a while the teacher went nutty
fearing she no longer knew anybody.
Whoever said "here" was not really there
but somebody else who sat in their chair.
Whoever said "present" was probably not,
but sitting elsewhere like a plant in a pot.
She couldn't be sure anymore who was who;
who was real who was fake,
who was false who was true.
She went to the lounge, she needed a break
and when she came back in her seat there was Jake.
Now Jake he was quite an amicable type
good manners, no back talk, no hand jive, no hype
She said "My good man, I really do wish
you'd get back in your seat over there by the fish."
"You must be confused mam," this Jake he replied,
"I'm not Jake at all, I'm his twin brother Clyde."
At that she collapsed and fell to the floor
and on the way down said "You're driving me batty
I don't even know my own name anymore.
Is it Isabelle? Lydia? Mattie?
To hell with you all, I no longer care
Do what you will, sit anywhere."
In unison all of the students guffawed
and stamped their feet amazed
that a teacher's thinking could be so flawed
Bartholomew shouted "she must be dazed!"
"It was that fall, I'll bet," shouted Yvette
"Somebody give her a beer," said Paul
who doubled as Geoffrey and tripled as Saul.
And Hank who sometimes went by Mary
said "roll on floor laugh my ass off"
While Richard known as Dick or Harry
uttered his usual "cough expletive cough."
And then came the soliloquy
delivered by Sue aka Marie
one never could be too sure
in determining who was who anymore.
Either would do, it did not matter,
since each was surely mad as a hatter.
Up on the teacher's desk she stood
" Listen up people and listen up good"
Then on one foot like Jethro Tull
she said, "Being me is never dull."
And then to prove it, snapped her thong.
A drum roll ensued. She broke into song.
Ballad of the Fakesters
The teacher sits upon the floor
propped up against a rubber door
has she not heard it's a new day,
it's a new dawn?
Does she not know what's going on?
That all the old rules have been flung
out the window like so much dung
to which only fools now clung
fools, and those poor hangers-on
of idealism, realism.
Nothing more that empty prattle!
We are not chattel, we are not cattle,
to be fed on old school bullshitism
an idiotic catechism to be sure
Nothing more. Nothing more.
What nerve of this teacher.
What nerve of this creature,
expecting each and every one
to sheepishly comply,
to be I and only I,
to be me and always me,
never to be he or she,
us or we, they or them.
It boggles the minds
and represses all kinds
of mischief, deception and foolery.
The very stuff we thrive on.
The stuff we keep alive on.
Well we shan't have it!
No, we shan't have it!
No single identity for us.
We're riding on a separate bus
It's big and it's orange
we call it Halloween.
From it's windows
we can be seen
laughing
at fools like you
who sit and drool
over a pool
of your precious truth.
by Leo
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