From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser

From a dead beat to an old greaser, here's thinking of you.

You won't remember the long nights;

coffee bars; black tights and white thighs

in shop windows where blonde assistants fully-fashioned a world made

of dummies (with no mummies or daddies to reject them).

When bombs were banned every Sunday and the Shadows played F.B.I.

And tired young sax-players sold their instruments of torture ---

sat in the station sharing wet dreams of Charlie Parker,

Jack Kerouac, Ren'e Magritte, to name a few of the heroes

who were too wise for their own good --- left the young brood to

go on living without them.

Old queers with young faces --- who remember your name,

though you're a dead beat with tired feet;

two ends that don't meet.

To a dead beat from an old greaser.

Think you must have me all wrong.

I didn't care, friend. I wasn't there, friend,

If it's the price of pint that you need, ask me again.