Deliverance Song

I sat in the corner of the smoke ridden bar,
The smell of bitter whiskey filling my lung,
The stink of old men smothering the wood,
And the alcohol thick on my tongue.

Then the music started, the sweetness of the drums,
And the strum of the guitar string,
The waver of a voice on the old microphone,
Round the grey darkened room it did ring.

In kicked the bass, the sweet thump of its heart,
To the plucking of violin strings,
And the throb of the bass drum filling my body,
With it the movement it brings.

As the tap of my foot kept the rhythm in time,
And my head bobbed without thought,
The bruises began to fade away,
And away with the pain that it brought.

The music swept me off my feet,
Curling warm colours through my hair,
When i hear the ring of the chorus note,
With the delivering beat of the snare.

Were you to look upon the girl I become,
When Old Billy picks up his guitar,
You wouldn’t think of the broken slut,
That sits alone in the corner of the bar.

Mountain Road

Mountain Road,
a threadless way,
and if i dare to stop,
and watch,
the cloud that haunts the mountain top,
and if i dare to look upon,
below the wander of snaking rivers,
the haze thats settled on the trees,
covered in the dew of morning,
mist of spirits kiss softly 'gainst my bare cheek,
in my ear i hear them speak,
but alas the moment passes,
like a whisper through the grasses,
and i find myself alone,
alone on a Mountain road.

My Teacher Killed Shakespear...

Okay, obviousely not literally, we all know shakespear died about four hundred years ago, and since his death, we have all come to know and love his works of art. Each year, second year students learn collectivly one shakespearian play for thier junior cert course, and this year, my year, we have been assigned the play "Merchant of Venice".
Now this is not the first time I have read/watched/audienced this play. I've seen it on stage and watched the movie starring Al Pacino as Shylock and Jeremy Irons as Antonio. My mother is an qualified english teacher and explained the whole story while we watched it, helping me to understand the meaning of shakespearian language and see through the complicated verds and adjectives to the true meaning being expressed. I liked this play, once upon a time.
Then my teacher started teaching it to us. Now, you must understand, this is our full time teacher, not any H-Dip or anything. This is our fully qualified teacher.
She started out asking if anyone knew the play already. Obviously my hand shot up, and i may have explained the whole thing in the space of five minutes.
She spent three full classes explaining to us how jewish people in those times ended up lending money. THREE CLASSES! and it wasn't even new stuff each class, it was the same stuff again and again and again! how the jewish people starting pawning merchendise, jacking up prices and so on. she explained how they were the only ones who could lend money by usury. Over and over.
by week three, we had gotten to page two in the play and those who hadn't really been pushed about the play now hated it.
And that's not all. after we got to about page ten and were pretty much half way through the year, she had us write down our first impressions of the characters. we had learned of bassanio's wish to borrow from antonio and go to belmont in search of portia's hand in marriage.
i wrote that bassanio was a lazy, disorganised fool who couldn't keep track of money and was only intrested in porchia because of her money. My teacher shot this down, saying that we had found out from portia that she and bassanio were flirting with eachother. But as i seem to recall, it was only portia who ever seemed to truely fall in love, and we girls so easily fall in and out of that, i hardly think it means bassanio loves her. But my teacher didn't want to hear it. Bassanio loved Portia and that was final. Forcing thier opinions on us is NOT a way to teach. We're suppose to form our own opinions, are we not.
Sometimes i wonder if teachers really want us to learn, to be able to answer questions from our own minds, or if they simply want us to have one idea so that they only have to find how that idea is worded in order to correct the work. Its like thier too lazy to try and think about something deeper then the surface, like they couldn't be bothered to try and understand our point of view. Shakespear would be ashamed.