Harrow Poem by Hugh Fraser

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)