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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37 No. 3. March 20, 1974
Poems
Poems
a religious experience
where we once saw a man vanish
and the cars stand on weekends
backed-up over the hill
a red bus failed to brake
at the turn coming up from the beach
and Mrs Rokosi finally met
the God she used to call on
for authentication
in front of nine primers
from the School for the Blind
generally considered
a great mercy
and a sure sign
D.S. Long
ChristchurchTo Rest in Peace
Leave me alone
I have come much too far
My bones were not so hard
That I could dare this road
Leave me alone.
You thought I knew, that
I understood your pain
That I'd someday come again
Well I've failed and that's a shame
But you've not right to drag me on
Leave me alone.
I am a symbol nothing more;
Remember what I came here for
I thought that God would help me out
Well I was wrong.
You put my words into a book
You praised the torture that I took
But then you all began to doubt
When it took so long.
I was a mortal, merely man
I was not there when time began
My power came from you alone
When you had faith.
Leave me alone!
—Marty
Two Years Inside is what They Need
At age of fifty-four, he found
His life not what it once had been;
The time had passed, he saw at last
Ambitions were an idle dream; as if
(To answer for himself) the opportunities
Were too unfair for such as him
And gentle anonymity
Left mind unused and spirits dim.
Not that his time remained ill-spent;
He taught, he fought with miscreant lads
To bend their brains or make a dent
In stubborn indifference to English and French
To justify, each year, to them
And once more to himself again
That what they learnt was vital lore
to turn them into upright men.
And in this way, from day to day,
The years had plodded on bereft
Of hope, indeed enlightenment;
Unmarried, unloved, nothing left.
He'd heard the jokes on dirty men
Of lewd scoutmasters' roving eyes
But as the bells went, now and then
The notion in his mind would rise —
He'd squash it straight away
A Protestant, right-thinking man
Who'd trained himself to close his mind
When evil thoughts, like snakes, began
To eat away his soul. Yet in the end
Dave found he was not quite as strong
As many years before; a boys' school education
Far too long
Had fed his isolation all the more.
So one day he was pensioned off
And rumours flew around the school
How Smiley Andrews had been caught
For actions at the swimming pool
Which members of 3B had thought
In retrospect, they should report.
Old Andrews, fifty-four, was charged
And brought before the bar confused
His shame a punishment beyond
The mercy that he'd been refused.
"This Court would fail" the Judge intoned
"Protection of our youth.
Men like you should be inequitate sic
Law 'n order, shame forsooth
Disgusting, man in your position
Only one thing we can do
Report at once to your physician
We're going to put you in our zoo
There's hundreds of others just like you
Homos perverts poofs and queers
Best thing we can do for you
Homos perverts poofs and queers
Is lock you together
Two years locked together
All have fun together
And then you'll be right again."
If you have any poems, short stories etc. Salient will be glad to consider them for publication.