50 years after the summer of love

days of cigarettes and scents

rigour without effort

girls exploring short nights

in bluejeans,leather and lace

music capturing rebellion

expressed in your hand

raised in peace not in fists

belief in a future were we would exist

children of new eden

under St Francis's sky

where flowers were power

with love of one summer

that sated the thirst of our souls

quenched and abandoned

through the myriad quests

of accumulated things and years

still dreams and remembers

on tides of sandalwood and brut

when poets artists and musicians

tuned in, turned on

and changed the world.

moments remembered at the edge

moans of dying flowers

in coffee can pots

lining windowsills and fire escapes

drift down to the splintered streets

this late autumn afternoon

tenement windows open

evicting summers dead skin

of sweat and corroded dreams

into a blood red sunset

faces stare out, downward

heads drooping

like their wilted flowers

both only shadows

of colour and light – untended

descending into darkness