Just Outside, Blinking

The sea is down,
flat out beneath a grey dusk
as though even the moon has given up calling.

People still working,
all weather & all-moods -
wheelie bins like sentinels,
railings straight as bigotry
scowling the coastline.
One worn-wood sign suggests exercise here.
Across the road a blinking
dirty light in weedy verge night -
TOOHEY'S NEW.

Beams scouring the black Pacific -
an army helicopter brushes the headland.
I fear any man's promise
written in neon blue. TOOHEY'S NEW

There's a trickier search in wait
a harder work
than catching the next heated room,
just hands out
for the promise of the new
& comfort of the old. TOOHEY'S NEW

Les Wicks