We Were The Studs Of Spring (Class Poem, 1966)

 

Recently found the poem I read at graduation from Exeter in 1966. I was elected to be the Class Poet. Just yesterday is how it feels. Actually it was 60 years ago... P.S. My nickname was Kirby because that was the name of my Labrador Retriever.

Each generation has its blades -
and we were the unbilical swordsmen.
We cleaved the clinging mothers from our rib
and ribbed our rinds with scandalous fruit.
We rode our mangers down the years
and swamped the deathbed ebbing of the old
with stallion-studded blood:
We were the studs of Spring.
Our hair turned in the lock of Youth,
our mustard-tongued mouths burned History's witch,
our lips were windy with desecration.
We felt the sermoned fishes tugging at our tide
and summoned young-yeared wishes
against the Cross-hooked lives,
but the lines ofour blood were taught
and could never be broke by boys.
So we paid no heed to our hauling veins.
We built our bones with beer and song 
while the age-old rhythm of our blood
rocked like a Haufbrau sea
in the holy houses of our grandfathers' drunken dreams.

Mute Heritage mouthed her plasmic strength around our spine,
marrowed a stillness in our bone,
molded a laboring curse into our backs,
shaped our thumbs with triumph,
soothed Youth's negative nerve,
and loosed a  trumpet in the loin
to sing the majesty of Man...
We pay no heed - like children with blocks
we wild and tempered blades must topple the crown of Time. 

Now a new hand-holding kindergarten
files in two by two.
From the womb-wasting weather of their veins
hear the romper-room raging of our blood!
For the son is singing with his father's sins
and he cleaves from his mother with a song.