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.