Autobiography

It's been a couple of months since I added a new autobiographical poem. This one may require some explanation for those unfamiliar with the British education system as it stood in the 1960s. Children moved from primary education to secondary education at the age of eleven. Exactly where they moved to was determined by an exam, called the eleven plus, that all children took at about that age. Passing it meant that you got to go to what was called a "Grammar School", failing it got you sent down the road to the "Secondary Modern" school and what was perceived (probably wrongly) as being an inferior education.

I passed my eleven plus and went on to Bilston Boys' Grammar School.

Long Division

Now, and now alone,
We will set your life in stone.
If you want to be the best
Then you have to pass the test.

As you walk out through the door,
We'll already have the score
And fifty years away
You'll be marked still by this day.

The friends you've had till now
Will be divided too, that's how
You will find that through the years
That your past just disappears.

*

It's the first day on the bus
Now you're either "them" or "us"
As the test has made the sides
So the uniform divides.

And you'll lose some more control
As you grow into the roll
In the school that was decided
By the answers you provided.

This moment of decision
Is a lifelong, long division
For the path that you're now on
Has now become the only one.