Ad.
Cool, frothy, bubbling booze
Like a golden gun
Aimed at your thirst.
G. MacKay, IIIB.

SPRING
Cold pockets of winter resistance
Clouds blocking out the sun
Silhouetted trees growing green
The slow uneventful victory of spring.
R. Knox, IIIA.

SPRING
Trees in bloom
Swift flowing rivers
Snow melting.
W. Murray, IIIB.

WATCHING TV
I call for Henry.
Shots ring out.
Two hungry mouths less,
The rebels are looting
The peasants are hiding.
"Yes, my lord," asks Henry entering the room.
C. Common, IIIA.

I lay back on the settee.
The television was warming up.
Horizontal lines zig-zagged, blinked.
People running frantically.
A man brandished a head in front of the camera.
"God, it's the news !
Anyone for cocoa?"
J. White, IIIB.

L'AFFAIRE D'UN HERO
It can't go on this way, you say
But not to each other
You cannot talk
You have no common ground
Or friendship to fill it.
Your love is dead.
Your meetings hollow
And copyright;
You never contradict the appointment book
- Not even in Lent.
Battery hens do not break out
cry "Go now. We are dead"
Only a fool despises cloisters.
You must carry on together
Living in an iron lung.
M. Stear, IV.

I listen to my brother, a soldier on leave. On television are pictures of Vietnam. Total dead, 800 in two weeks. Someone will sit and mourn As I sit and listen to my brother.
S. Dalziel, IIIB.
i
The second match spluttered
And tumbled to the cobbles
As naked striped curtains
Flapped at wailing windows
That yelp and bitch at my intrusion.
Here among the dark and uncertain
I am nothing.

Nothing in the animate silence
Broken only by a wireless
On the very late show.

A car's headlights
Pin me to the turgid wall;
I am no longer myself.
Just a damp silhouette.

The dying gear change
Returns me to the cigarette.
The trickle of sewage.
And the envy of starlight
As the third match splutters into life.
S. Bruce, VI.

BEAR, ALL BARE
Dragging myself out of the stinking pit, I was confronted by my next task. How to avoid the growling bear? I took the easy way out, and immediately threw myself straight back into the slimy pit. A couple of hours later, I sneaked up and peered over the edge of the pit at the bear who, being all bare, was standing in a position of considerable embarrassment. With a low-pitched "EEK!" he dived for his swimming trunks and, coyly facing the other way, struggled to pull them up over his stocky hindquarters. They stretched repulsively. I saw my opportunity and rushed towards the stockade. Once over, I would be free.
Climbing up swiftly, I just managed to avoid the bear's clutching paw as it whistled up behind me,