THE BEAT GENERATION*

After cold Winter’s colours of nothing,
We now survey purple jacarandas,
Set against the sky blue backdrops of Spring,
And best loved from shaded back verandahs.
Calmed, I watch the petals drop and settle -
Cool carpets that will soon fade with the heat
Of Summer days - boiling like a kettle -
When daylight saving drains us, burned and beat.

* “The beat characters after 1950 vanished into jails and madhouses, or were shamed into silent conformity.”  (Jack Kerouac)