we i was young
and perpetually broke

and equally bored
there was a place
i would go...

with towel in hand
and a bottle of red cordial,
a book to read
and reef brand coconut oil,
in a cotton shoulder bag.

i would set off down
to the beach,
a mile or so away.
filching, apples and milk
money, along the way.

once there, would find
a spot up near the dunes
and stay and read and broil
away.

breaking my sunbaking
only to go buy
"three dollars of chips
and a chiko roll"
with money purlioned
and a guilty grin...

ocassionally i would fall
asleep and wake up
lobster red....and suffer
the burn for days..
but the more you suffered
the deeper the tan..
nut brown was the desired look.. or in these days
parlance cafe au lait....

now i pay for that innocent
delight...
with checks,three monthly
on sunspots and the lurking
fear of melaloma always near ...

i am not the only one,
there is a generation,
of sun bronzed aussies.
who now pay dear,
for those earlier
ignorant years.

God,
**** them *******
before they **** me.

Amen.

r ~ 9/18/14

from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.

one flies
off.
then
another.

one is left,
then
it too
is gone.

my typewriter is
tombstone
still.

and I am
reduced to bird
watching.

just thought I'd
let you
know,
******.

We are all
just lifetimes
searching for
       infinities.
     And the broken
    parts or who
we were
      should never
          be excluded
   from the beauty
of what we
are.
     -Andrew Durst

yesterday's pain
could be tomorrow's
grace.

You just have to
wake up and find-out
for yourself.

I fell asleep against
the stained glass that painted
the ground with colors that
children only see through
the lenses of kaleidoscopes;
vividness that blind men
only see when holding the
warm hands of their lovers.

I woke up to the bells
singing tunes of the eschaton
and the priest muttering
damnation upon the half-empty
bottle of Jim Beam resting in my lap.

"Want a swig?" I asked with a stagger.
"No," he replied.  "Whiskey is the devil's elixir

and besides,
there are plenty a bottle of Christ's blood behind the altar from which to choose."

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.