Oakwood Collegiate Institute - Oracle Yearbook (Toronto Ontario, Canada)

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m EfiCAPING fiLAVE My hands are red from the brick and stone, I ache in every joint and bone, My back is tired, my feet are sore. How much more, how much more, how much more. They whip me if just once I slip. Yea, I shall die by the crack of the whip. To think of escaping, you have to be brave. But I ' d rather be dead than a laboring slave. As soon as the morning ' s work was begun Towards the forest I started to run. Yes! - they saw me in my dash And the hounds were on me as quick as a flash. I raced and raced with burning feet I could heor their barks through the torrid heat. If caught, I knew my fate, A whipping - then those Pearly Gates. Just a hundred yards where the water falls. There ' s a deep dark canyon with sheer rock wails. I set my goal to reach it ' s slope On it ' s cliff was held my only hope. My master was near in sight. But too late, for I had ended my flight. On the edge of this cliff I trembling stand With no place to go, and death on hand. Sandwiched between two ugly deaths. To go over the cliff or to be unmercifully slew OH LORD! - My fate I leave to You! Ted Miller CITY RAIN Grey rain pearls on slate streets, Dull beads sliding down sooty city walls. Mud-ringed puddles, trickling gutters and Rain-wind spattered greasy window panes, Water-sodden news, a papier-mache mess. Cowering damp-breasted pigeons high on rain-swept fifth avenue ledges. Itinerant bum, wine-ridden, a black blotch on o grey satin street. Trailing a writhing reflected and forlorn shadow. Dripping undrained tenements, dripping sterile steel- and-glass offices. Drips. Kingsize drips, fliptop drips, grey three-button madison avenue drips. Fizzling faulty lurid neons, lightships in the dismal murk. Times square neons, bowery neons, new york neons whose Serpentine reflections have danced for aeons In the water-washed streets. Jon McKee AMBER The crisp sharp smoke of burning leaves that starts the mind And wreathes the trees in sombre hues of greys and blues ignores The small boys taxiing along concrete leaf-spattered sidewalks With both lungs at full revs, so that the dusty stillness Shatters with their shrill exhausts. And a pigeon here, too lazy to fly, saunters along with his feather collar Turned up, watching a scampering juvenile breeze Catch the leaf-smoke and wind it tight round that staid old oak On the corner lot, and jerk it once As the shrieking scrape of a rake Signifies its tortured progress over a cement sidewalk when its master For the soke Of cleanliness sacrifices more senile wrinkled leaves to the gaping maw Of the plump spark-spitting fire-god in the gutter. Finally, utter desolate Silence arrives, disguised as Night Too late, alas, to stop one lone escapist leaf Which rolls, slides, bounces, bowls and glides Happily down the street. Jon McKee 94

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WIND IN THE TREES DIXIE ROAD Wind in the trees, mournfully sighing, What is the message thou waftest to me? Wind in the trees, trees that are dying. Come thou from over the wild, stormy sea? Yes, I can sense it, the tang of the ocean. Salt, briny waters that eddy and fall. Yes, I can feel thee Wind, ever in motion Wrapping around me thyself and thy all. What do you say, Wind sadly whining? What is the message from over the sea? Sayest thou someone is weeping and pining? Is someone pining and weeping for me? Haste thee Wind, haste thee! Carry a letter. Carry it over the green, dashing sea. Take it to her that is weeping, and greet her, Tell her I love her as she loveth me. Go, thee Wind. Go, yet do not go asighing. Whistle not sadly among the dead trees. Tell her not now that her true love is dying. Tell her not all of the message. Wind, please. TedReid DEATH CHAMBER The room was cold and drab and bare, A sink, a table, a bed, a chair. Not a window to let the clean light in To cleanse the hole of filth and sin. The air was thick and it stank of drink, (Bottles lay in the dirty sink). And smoke curled up and wreathed around From the pointless roof to the littered ground. And scuttling round the room, a rat As bold as brass, and more than that. The only sound, the old bed ' s creak, (More smell than sound with the whiskey ' s reek, Tobacco fumes, and moulding bread. And sweat and rats alive and dead). But among it all a person dwelt. Struggling now with the pain he felt, A WORN old man on the iron heap That he called a bed, where he tried to sleep. And between his drinks he looked and cried, And a throaty cough,- he turned and died. Ted Reid Two hundred miles we ve rolled this night, And but for auto s brave headlight, Virginia ' s hills would have swallowed us. On, on, up, down-round we followed The twisting white unbroken line. Passing neither farm nor city. No other car, no highway sign; Sore we yearn ' d a place for coffee. Then in the bosom of the hills Far down below — a blinking light — There nested in the sable night A town With coffee Haze fills At Hazel ' s all-nite restaurant The clinking mugs of porcelain Bold smells of twelve-inch hot dogs haunt The air, while Peter takes great pain In heaping relish on his ' dog ' In recess from Night ' s starless fog. Tyrant Whistle from nearby mines Exacts the men of midnight shift As four-to-twelve in exodus — Muckers, drillmen, And from the drift — Shuffle into Hazel ' s Grill. The hum becomes a din Of sizzling hamburg on the pan bleeding genial greasy smoke; The ting-ting mixing of the food And florid laughter At some miner ' s joke. Clack-clucking of pin ball machines Competes with noisy juke-box jive. Among the conflux Hazel dodges. Bringing apple pie to teasing men, Along the counter dust-faced miners Sit sucking hot spaghetti through smacking lips One cup more of Hazel ' s coffee Pete wipes the mustard from his chin And nods he ' s ready to begin. As we pull out, old coloured man Stands staring In amusement At our stunted ' 50 Austin. Morning in North Carolina New pigments stain the eastern sky; They rend Night ' s swarthy firmament And gild the roofs of share-crop farms. Straight on lies her southern sister. Then flat Savannah And the sea. A. Aarons 93

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THE PRESIDENT ' S REPORT (continued from page 13) to Oakwood students this year. Are we succeeding? Yes, quite definitely! If it were not so, the members should not so soundly have supported a motion to extend the franchise for electing the Caput executive to grade 10. In- deed it is generally conceded, that the lower grade knows more about Caput than ever before. (I must confess here, that this effort is not a particular result of any carefully wrought policy, but is a re- sult of the dynamic leadership, the junior grades are getting from their elected representatives, whose speeches and vote-getting influence has magnified the authority of the junior school to an unprecedented level.) I said earlier that this year ' s record was incon- gruous and have attempted to justify this state of affairs by explaining the developing attitudes and circumstances which have made it so. Perhaps such rationalization, in all fairness should be bal- anced by my paying homage to the individuals who make Caput, and without whose service I should have nothing to write about. Publicly I wish to ex- press my heartfelt thanks to Mr. W.V. Tovell and Mr. A.E. Hobbs whose doorways were always ac- cessible when Caput required their views or co- operation. I wish to thank Staff members who ser- ved as sponsors or who were generous in their ad- vice, and also the office staff, who handled our correspondence and patiently attended to each re- quest. The committees functioned adequately as they always do. Caput members generally showed themselves to be alert and to exercise good judg- ment in their voting. As the leaders of our rela- tively young body, the veterans, whose services are lost this year due to graduation (I think par- ticularly of Ernie Weinrib and Don Rogers) should not pass unheralded. Not that these, however should be the only persons upon whose foreheads laurels should be placed; we should be aWare of the high calibre of those individuals in the remain- ing grades who are too numerous to mention, yet who constitute a copious reservoir of talent. Tal- ent, which should be of maximum advantage in building Caput into a more prestigious, more useful and better equipped organization. Next September a new Caput will reconvene. We hope that the unsolved dilemmas held over from the present session will not be many, and we are confident that it will deal successfully with the new problems confronting it. The love of demo- cratic ideals, which spurred the creators of the Oakwood Collegiate Institute Caput, the love of our country which spurred this year ' s Caput to in- itiate the playing of 0 Canada , and the respect for tradition, which equally spurred Caput to main- tain the playing of God Save the Queen , these are strong concepts, Oakwoodites. Be proud of them and protect them! There ' s a future for young men with matriculation standing In Canada ' s largest bank. New jobs and new opportunities are opening up all the time. If you ' d like to know more about a career with the ' Royal ' , ask for a copy of our booklet Your Future in Banking . Any of our managers would be glad to talk the matter over with you at your convenience. THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA St. Clair Oakwood Branch G. J. Bailey, Manager LORRI ' S DRESSES ' SPORTSWEAR - LINGERIE COATS - SUITS AND ACCESSORIES 1068 ST. CLAIR AVE. WEST Telephone LE. 3-3660 10% DISCOUNT FOR STUDENTS 95