Found a few poems I wrote when I was about 15 or 16. Thought I’d better put them down here for keep sake. The beach one, won a national poetry competition in 1979. I won a massive $40.00

There was a third poem, my favorite about a drug addict who died at the age of 22. I wonder if my parents threw that one away?

Here they go.

HAEMOPHILIAC

Cushioned from life,
On a threshold of pain.
Slightest bump, dead.

Infinite transfusions,
Tests.
A guinea pig.

Hospital, second home.
Lying, waiting, hoping,
Hospital till death.

THE END.

A little gloomy…but not a bad effort for a 15 year old.
The next one, won I think, because it wasn’t about death or drugs. It was a happy poem. That’s what one of the judges told me. I still say the drug poem was a work of art.

MORNING ON BEACH

Wind trickles by,
Silence looms in darkness,
Water breaks to sand.

Light shatters horizon,
Eeriness indistinct.
Gull interferes.
Dark – light, eyes unfocused.

Wind dies,
Eeriness distinct,
Light brings warmth.

Eyes focus,
Persons inhabit.
Gulls flock – beg.

Morning broken.

THE END.

as I typed that it was the first time in over 30 years to have even read them again. I don’t think I’d be able to ever write poems like that again. What was I on? lol.

I’ll try and reconstruct the best one if I can…but I think it’s lost…

Will edit in a few lines here and there if they come up from the depths of my grey matter.

some keywords to throw out there in a jumble for now.

Cone Head was the title
???????
tattered mattress containing
pot and hash and cones.

….narcs.

dead at 22. (was the last line)
???????

These poems were homework tasks from an excellent teacher we had in year 9 or 10 who was a stand in teacher. Forget his name. He had been studying in London and came back to Aus with all these whacky ideas. I don’t think we ever used a text book with him. He kind of reminded me of Br. Aldroe at St Pius I had in year 7 who used to get us to write one page essays once a week. That was also the best year of English teaching I’d ever experienced. We’d just write and write and write and read to the class.
All kinds of topics… Wish I’d kept all those essays as well.

Edit. Sep 2nd 2012.

Seems like I had a bit of luck here…an old school friend had copied down the last paragraph into her diary in 1979 and still had a copy of it….here is what she managed to get to me…amazing… Thanks Lyn.

”Ok
Found the poem but it says you wrote “a bit of it on the blackboard” April 4th 1979

Insanity has set in
Narcs have caught
Hospital
Institution
Convalescent
Invalid
Aged 22

Thats all I’ve got.
”