A View from the Port Hills [I]

(MS-704.22.35)

Denis, the town’s as flat as a drawing-board;
The remittance men who built it on a bog
Must have been drunk! At Sumner one wet day
I smashed the lightshade with your Navy sword,
And piddled like a dog
On a tree outside the Valley Inn. The grey
Light kills us. You were the Jason of our times,
The one who had the courage of his crimes;

You taught me how to think. That year we piled
Pelion on Ossa. In ’48 this crude
Land of drenched willows, riverflats and farms,
Carried me in her placket like a child
Unborn. I understood
Nothing; learnt three words at the Heathcote Arms
From you—Truth is ourselves—I oil my gun,
So much attempted and so little done.