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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31 Number 2. March 12, 1968

Cold People clambered over the Brim

Cold People clambered over the Brim

Cartoon of man holding a towel

Cold people clambered over the brim of my graveyard
Into a valley of screeching gunmetal
Where black became a sparkling prinsil in a blinding flash.
The volcano edge was littered with glows
And the valley pines tingled
On the brink of a precipice.
As the poets have it: it was
Love at first sight
Until death instantly parted us
With a dragons muzzle-loader

You remained behind the searchlight
A basilisk's eye turned me to stone.
Cold people clambered over the brim of your graveyard
Into the shadows behind the night-fires
Where souls are united.
Robots stamped and owls hooted out of boredom.
I felt, a cold person, you
Flaming a witch's wand
Which arched and plummeted
To the other side of my tepid ocean.
As the preachers say: May
God be with you
(As a chaperone.) We did not care.
Silence betokened consent
If short enough.

We consented. Your womb produced
Plastic flowers for our grave.

Ours was a beautiful entwining
We made love each night and
Cold people trampled our children in the dust
Where we wanted them.

J. S. Hales