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
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