I remember only the detritus of schools <br />which taught fear, <br />where only nuns seemed to believe <br />in the power of the written word and punishment. <br />There was a boy in the middle of it all <br />who once forged his father’s signature <br />in order to dodge a maths test <br />and spent the whole day in a World War II cemetery <br />sleeping between roses and epitaphs. <br />The intimidation of books from Glasgow <br />made him steal small notes and coins from his father <br />which admitted him to a mystic circle <br />of titbits, cannabis, and adult tales <br />far away from pink rooms and uniform handwriting <br />or ‘eena meena maina mo’ by rote <br />after clambering walls that grow glass-creepers <br />to the freedom of cork trees and frogs and egrets, <br />a stinking marshy world of catapults and running noses <br />which grappled with black polished shoes <br />and moral science, to return home <br />on cloudy evenings brewing storm-fuelled nights <br />exiled on a reed mat and only a hurricane lamp <br />with slate, chalk, and as the years grew up <br />inkwell and bamboo-pulp paper <br />were the keepsakes of his childhood. <br />There were mosquito storms and <br />cool dirt floors polished with cowdung and clay, <br />ruined walls and lizard myrtles and moss <br />which reminded elders of neglect <br />near a big water tank left behind by British soldiers <br />where vipers came to drink, and <br />gaudy walls of goddesses. <br /> <br />I can see the naïve boy <br />who couldn’t read the dirty word <br />spelt on the ground by his older friends <br />in the calligraphy of randy boyhood, <br />and, later, obsessed with that moist idea <br />explored his girl cousins fervently. <br /> <br />There were long delightful, convalescent afternoons <br />of illustrated classics without <br />the stress of the school bus when he heard <br />only the sleepy clang of hammers <br />in the nearby smithy, when life burnt slowly <br />like calories even when he was sleeping, <br />without the solemnity of anyone’s life <br />coming to an end.<br /><br />Robin S Ngangom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/primary-schools/
