WINTER IN BARRACKS
(For Petty Officer’ Roy Gardner, R.N.) F OR a week over dockyard, harbour and stone barracks Stars as sharp as diamonds cut the sky’s Black, evening velvet; outside all ermine snow and the tall clock, Luminous, but always late and full of lies. In those short days you and I laughed together, Carrying into the Mess puftballs of breath Purer than all our lives, this shrine of weather A prayer half-said between a death and a death. At the Mess stove blossomed flowers of hands; Litanies of booze and women, shadows picking Qur souls’ pockets; or we felt the worn-out wintry ends Of cold town pavements under our footsteps clicking All joy away, ugly even in snow. I give you these few words for what I saw In that brief revelation. and was still to know ~
When the world flooded in again at the great thaw.
Charles
Doyle
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 928, 24 May 1957, Page 23
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151WINTER IN BARRACKS New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 928, 24 May 1957, Page 23
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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