remains,
much the same milky white and pale as stone.

Hotel Diligencias

In Veracruz
dusk troubles with a scent of
gardenias after the last tramcar passes by,
and the rocking chairs begin their
small breeze-making on the balconied
terraces between the family photographs
and little statues.

The dancing couples revolve at an angle
in the great brewery mirrors marked:

Cerveza Moetezuma

before the globes lighting the plaza
die out at 9:30 pm sharp.

But this was
Villahermosa.

Lightning burns like mescal in
the throat of night.

The whisky priest skulks about
the mountain roads where you are headed, at
Chiapas or Las Casas, charging so many
pesos per baptism in the illegal night.

With or without him thrive the false
saints & miracles in these remote regions,
pure homage to superstition.

O comfort of Poverty! O lie of Pleasure!

You recalled the hot seaport,
your departure planned on the Ruiz Cano
that dangerous barge which took you
out over the Gulf of Mexico

away from the anger hidden in laughter,
from the pistilleros lounging by
the Presidencia.

You the too curious
gringo left behind you the coasting steamers
& pink squared plazas to forget the
taste of warm beer in dreary cantinas.

You headed for the high ground
of Tabasco & the country of ruined churches.
Back at the beginning

of those lawless
roads lie the dingy houses smearing out onto
silver sandhills.

Wardrobe Drinkers

is what they are in Austinmer.
Yuppies from the North Shore, $300,000
homes on the beach front, sending
the RSL broke & the greenies
blocking development for a few birds
up an estuary. Could be worse,
given the Japs on the Gold Coast
going off like mobile phones.
The miners & cottages are long gone &
so is full employment. In 1941
as a telegraph delivery boy I made
13 shillings 10 a week. Across
the Harbour Bridge to the North Shore
on a regulation red bike. Sunday
was the day for casualty messages,
the dead & wounded delivered
all over Sydney except Vine street,
Darlington, where Darcy the Crim lived
& the most dangerous place in town.
I came to Austinmer 30 years ago
before the Wardrobe Drinkers
in the days of the miners & cottages.
Take those grain & coal carriers
upwards of 250,000 tonnes with a 12
man crew, anchored stern to wind,
off Hill 60 out of Port Kembla