Learning How Not to Live — by Peter Abbs

What did I learn at school but the grammar of schism,
Tireless division of subject

And object, questions shut tight as an evangelist's fist,
The red catechism,

Clause analysis, problems with one correct answer
at the back of the book.

We put phrases in coffins and buried them neatly.
Where were the words

Which turned into kestrels on the wind's edge?
Where were the verbs

That flowered, dark cones of lilac at the window ledge
Or petalled the grass

Or scattered sharp hail against the hard glass?
The windows were shut.

We sat with our eyes down and learnt the sentence of stasis—
As though the querulous

Questions of life had to be always excised.
Each day—the chalk screech

Of our teachers' voices and the dry susurration of leaves
In the passage outside.