My Virtual Reading Room

To--hopefully--brighten up your Monday a bit ;)

This is JJ's lament (he's the assistant principal of a troubled inner-city New York school), from the inimitable Bel Kaufman's novel "Up the Down Staircase":

The ceiling fell? The ink ran dry? A student dared to smile?
Of every new disaster
I prove myself the master
By sending out more circulars, more circulars to file!

A missing kid? A kissing kid? A paper on the floor?
For every major crisis
One remedy suffices:
More circulars, more circulars, to put into a drawer!

A crowded cafeteria?
A substitute's hysteria?
A visitor from Syria?
A missing Book Receipt?

I merely send out circulars
To add to other circulars
To add to other circulars
Numerical and neat!