Jonathon Sicknote

Jonathon Sicknote

Jonathon Sicknote arrives late for school

with his face as long as a snooker cue.

Sad halibut mouth and beard of goat

a walking excuse is Jonathan Sicknote.

Wet wobbling lips, slack greasy chin,

he begs you remember the state he is in,

sleepless nights due to endless meetings,

support plans, threats and cruel briefings.

Stenciled face of the perpetual victim,

shrieks headteacher is out to get him,

hidden in corners muttering the sack,

with non-stick shoulders and sloping back.

A medicine chest of right rare diseases,

takes a day or two off whenever he pleases.

When cover’s published, staff scream in pain:

‘Fuck it. Jonathan Sicknote’s absent again.’

Spends every weekend getting pissed,

while claiming that all the girls he kissed

spread their sticky mucus and sore throats

but not their legs, for Jonathon Sicknote.

This scabrous sufferer of sticky mattress

with chronic fatigue and back disastrous

battles manfully against the countless ailments

to queue each day for Doctors’ statements.

A meat-eating vegan who’ll usually rant

tomorrow he’ll quit, but today he can’t,

so tired: tides of stress, ebbing and flowing,

it’s only his pack a day that keeps him going.

Scraped degree in obscure Star Trek language,

mounts Everests of penny-dreadful past baggage

with hard-frowning face; puzzling why he gets

to always teach those kids in the bottom sets.

Totes tatty papermills of unmarked books

while his nudging students cast knowing looks,

scanning last night’s comments, not yet wrote

by the run-out red pen of Jonathan Sicknote.

With unplanned lessons he prepared at home,

deskbound in classrooms; fiddling with phone,

he tweets to the wide world of chaos, and howls

that foul feral children trigger his irritable bowels.

At parent’s evening, snaking queues vainly spit

venom; that toxic Jonathan is permanently sick,

lying low in the dark and shielding his eyes,

his reports contain nothing but fictions and lies.

His Head of Department ever growls his despair,

they cannot find Jonathan Sicknote anywhere,

His boltholes are empty, he’s made for the door

and they say their aren’t teachers like him anymore.

The unions insist that he should still be paid,

for every mistake that the management made.

But he won’t strike for sure, preferring to gloat

at fuckwits that cover the backs of sicknotes.

(with apologies and thanks to the very very excellent Charles Causley)