Deviation Actions
Literature Text
I still think of you Ned,
when the fog wraps its fingers around the moon
and the Barber cuts down the valley.
Greymouth to Dobson, three-up on a 50,
and stolen cat-boxes for helmets.
The cops weren’t amused; we were legless with laughter,
got kicked up the arse and sent on our way.
Things sure were different then.
And I think of you Ned,
on a slow Sunday night
with the wreck of the weekend behind me,
and work to look forward to.
Sunday Horrors on telly – giant ants eating Yanks –
and the usual crew over to watch it.
You’d peed in my bath so I Black Flagged your beer
and the boys joked and laughed as you sculled it.
Life sure was different then.
Yeah, I think of you Ned,
when the westerly blows
and the storms settle in,
and the grey days go on forever.
You snorted tequila to wash down the worm
found green in the bush after DOC dropped 1080
smoked it with Muzza and then did datura
Max-Factored the chemist – the judge didn’t laugh –
You sure were different then.
I still think of you Ned,
when the sun blazes down on a bright summer day
and the waves roll in from the Tasman.
Committed to Seaview and nuked with Prolixin,
discharged and sent to a halfway house,
you’re let loose once a week so we go to the pub,
shoot pool, drink beer, and you’re back to square one,
so I stop going down – ’cause I do you no good,
then you ring and ask why, and Ned,
how do I tell you?
- The Barber - a cold, biting wind in the Grey Valley (on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.)
- 'Three-up on a 50' - three people on a 50cc motorbike.
- 'Giant ants eating Yanks' - reference to the 1954 US horror movie, Them! (about giant radioactive ants on the loose in New Mexico.)
- DOC - Department of Conservation (NZ)
- 1080 - a poison used to control possums and stoats (non-native pests, highly destructive to native plants and wildlife in NZ) - 1080 bait is dropped on large areas of bush. Its use is contentious due to concerns about its effect on said native plant and wildlife, and on nearby human populations.
- The Tasman - the sea between NZ and Australia.
- Seaview - a now-closed psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Hokitika (again, on the West Coast of the SI) with - what else! - a beautiful sea view.
- Prolixin - one of the early generation of anti-psychotics used to treat schizophrenia.
I get such a clear sense of setting and characters here.
The not-quite repetition at the end of each stanza is so effective - it really makes the poem for me.
Is this one of your poems for the course? I hope we get to see more of them!