On the walls were columns of names
engraved with surgical precision
on boards of fine wood.
Everything spoke of the rape of nature, humanity
and the human heart.
**** *******, Housemaster, glided through the house,
a teflon fish through stagnant filth.
At the fringes, trace elements escaped
into the chaotic but real world outside
- Harrow - and infected it with its hierarchy:
Every one of us had our place between two others,
One above, one below.
I liked to play squash in the winter-time,
when no one else wanted to leave the warmth
of the boarding house. I loved crossing the black
gap to the bare, classless walls of the squash courts.
No one needed to know.
I and George - or Tom - would play in the cold
until we glowed with physical heat.
Then we would turn off the buzzing lights,
shut the door, and return for a nervous shower
in fear of our mocking peers.
(Edinburgh, August 2012)
Hugh Fraser
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/harrow/
