Alan Walowitz

English Teacher’s Sunday Song

T-Bone brews Stormy Monday out of stale Sunday air;

Fats croons Blue Monday, but not enough blue

to soothe all the aching in your head—

and here you are, lost among the ruins

of what might have been a perfectly good Sunday—

the wine downed a little quick;

the cat too long ignored and what’s worse,

here comes Bad Old Monday, scrawny and malign,

having a smoke beneath the lamppost, and biding his time—

he knows he’s bound to come around.

So, toss the unread papers high as the indoors will allow,

and watch them head all ways and no ways at all

till the meaning lands gentle in your lap:

Nothing’s to get done on a Sunday--

though false friends have whispered

so many possibilities for the week to come:

Jean Brodie trills to her girls of a prime

that maybe never was; Robin Williams’

Mr. Keating exhorts his boys to seize the day

and charge headlong into the valley.

No wonder your eyes are propped open, no sleep in sight;

and soon your alarm will sound just the way it has

so many Mondays before:

Reminds you what one kid announced

when class dragged on too long:

Ain’t the bell getting ready to ring? he complained--

might be true, except the magic of that’s’s lost

on the likes of you. You, who planned all night,

but never manage to deliver

the lessons of the moon and stars,

the homework of the cool night air.