Poem 228

This school was where I also learnt the unsafety of the world …

… writing about what lies beneath, on the far side, secreted in the corners of the ordinary world or indeed in plain sight – they’re all ways of reminding myself to stay alert … in a different light any place any innocent thing (children’s paintings) can become sinister …

… through Olive Walker this links to Poem 56 and radiates beyond … I can see connections to all my poems of violence stalking ritual murder and sacrifice … daylight/nighttime childhood/adult and the dark driver of sex …

Sites

Schools are treacherous after dark
rape
        waits beside the classrooms
out on the black playing fields

Olive Walker died in my
intermediate
                       how often did I stand
in her blood?

we were the children the classes were built
for
     light and bright hung with our paintings
stiffening and powdering in afternoon
sunlight
               but all spaces are hunting grounds
        all sites sacred

Olive Walker died the shy girl
who walked at 10:30
by my school
                        an hour that left her alone
in a familiar place

schools are treacherous rape waits
within the black ring of fields
smoking cigarettes
in the deepest corners
      the best vantage points

across all the unlit windows 
                                                  our pictures
crude painted figures
hung dancing