page 28

Going off the Hill

It's time to be off, so down your scotch,
The staff aren't giving a golden watch.
All we've got now is the open road, the way it looks:
I can study rocks and you read books.

They had feeling down to a fine art, the staff,
Could measure stiffs, and intellectualise an arse.
My tutors deny they lead vicarious lives
Despite the sleepers they hire for husbands and wives.

The lecturers redeemed the souls of most of us
With a five-point plan 'why not to be a socialist.'
They were good those teachers, never said 'fuck',
Though I doubt if it'd matter much.

Except there's some high God they say they've heard,
Who hates to see socks down, or to hear that word.
As for the messy grots, and painted walls,
My apologies, it's all we had without balls.

Some brainy people said my reading was devious,
But I found God, and Marx, and Leavis.
That's what's no good, the way we're in the dark,
In nervous, truth-pursuing tutes, despise the quietest fart.

Alone we are enrolled, and graduate alone,
But find our friendship on Three Day Loan.
After three years, leave these strange lovers like a brothel:
Learn later the sign was for them, the sign in the old stuff and the modern novel.

One day rugby and booze got the news
That the modern woman was going to choose.
Her knuckling soul was not to find
A heated hen-box for her mind.

I'll remember faces, in a doped-up room
Where Lenin and Mao were bride and groom;
Who got whacked with rock in their ears,
And in the early morning fell down the stairs.

So long to the trampoline, and basketball hoop,
Quadrangle, library, and study group.
So long to SRC, Salient, and latin grammar,
And lunch in the grave-yard in godless manner.

So long to the talky cafe with its tall, swinging doors,
Its paper cups, chips, and beer-washed floors.
Nothing lasts forever, so after your degree,
What else to do but pack up and leave?

- Martin Doyle