TRANSIT Enthusiasts BY JOAN ALLRED We are the leashed and circumspect Fat Poodles with dull pink noses; Pedigreed virtue, clipped and sterilised, Walking on Sunday at Convention's heels; Our bored and bulging dowager-like eyes Looking on alley-cats and little boys With more dyspepsia than enmity But there are some uncouth And flopping-eared disturbers of the peace Whose song disturbs us as we lie in warm And well-bred dreams sometimes on Autumn nights The muddy pawed ones, the burr-matted hounds With legs like mill-wheels scratching for their fleas And eyes apologising for their sins. We stir, uneasily to hear the bugle sound Of baying move across the frosty hills Where the pack streams like a meteor tide After the little wicked rabbits of desire: Their long tongues rippling on the ribbon wind Hearts pounding; and the hunter blood in surge. We sigh and sleep again we do not know In what far meadow they may drop at last, Low on their bellies as the moon goes down, Drooling in adoration of much quarry, drunk With ignorant and mongrel ecstasy. FROM MAN'S BEST FRIEND A POEM IN EMBRYO IS FORMED. AUTUMN, 1942 LAST YEAR, Joan Allred's poetry won considerable attention from the Editors of Scholastic, the high school weekly magasine. One of her poems was judged second among thousands of contributions and was featured by radio's Ted Malone on a nation-wide broadcast. JOAN REACHES THE PENCIL NIBBLING STAGE, AS HER SENTIMENTS GET STUCK. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END IN THE WASTEBASKET. YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD WOMAN DOWN. WITH A SIGH OF RELIEF ONLY A WEEK BEHIND THE DEADLINE. 19