Swedish School

Swedish School

 

Young, well-dressed rich boys, spoilt and cuddled

by husmor downstairs who smoked cheroots.

I lived upstairs in a room of my own, husfaring

boys from twelve to twenty with plenty rage and sexually muddled.

 

Huddled together in little groups, smoking ganja at the door

of the house where some of the serving girls stayed.

They “laid them” or so they said, on the wall or in someone’s bed.

That’s how they spoke, those Swedish diplomats’ brats,

 

abandoned and paid for by mums and dads

who were living it up in luxury pads

in England, America, Europe or Asia.

Wining and dining in “Diplomatic Fantasia”

 

Blond-haired Sweden, land of boxes

of template copies and paradoxes.

 

September to May the lakes are hidden

below the ice and skidding cars.

October to May, the hungry osprey

has gone to Africa.

 

Summer days:

Bottled Pripps; lips to kiss and hands to hold.

Mottled bellies of returning ospreys.

The majestic span of wings that fan

the empty shores and trees around Mällaren.

 

Peaceful scenes, etched in wood;

the greens, the browns, the ancient spruce,

the ospreys dying, not to cull, not for need,

but for the ego of that rich, young Swede.