Of Peasoup and Piracy: (Butlers Wharf Winter 1962)

I have investment here.
Over the knots of a century.
It’s bound around the fraying years,
on the cold cleat of memory.

So loosen time and pull boys.
Flex the sinews, let’s heave away.
Cos there's cowboy hats from Patagonia,
oiled guns for Mandalay.

My uncle a scab in sixty two.
The days of whores and heresy.
The price for bananas and grapefruit,
was pea soup morning pleurisy.

Today there's just halogen.
New paint for this old estuary.
The pushing tide of daybreak,
ghosting the wharf of new misery.