Rod Moran: ‘The Yanchep Bonfire Raves’

From: The Yanchep Bonfire Raves

The Yanchep Bonfire Raves arose, over a number of years, from a gathering of poets, philosophers, and assorted other goliards, shooting the breeze around bonfires at Yanchep lagoon, north of Perth.

The Charlie “Bird” Parker Rave
Exiting the High Hat’s clammy bar,
Its air thick with a pepper of gossip,
Bird wandered crying in a moonstruck night,
Blowing Ornithology at the stars,
Diamond-eyed, quetzal-plumed,
His blood-flecked cough an abraded chord:
Miss Heroin hanging from his arm,
The fizz of her kiss on his hungry skin,
The dented moon red as a heated spoon,
Bird hallucinating in the shadows.
The city’s jive shone as Moose the Mooche,
Lizard-eyed pusher to Charlie’s arm,
Sold oranges spiked with a sherbet of dope,
Juice mellow as the cello of Bird’s gold sax.
And all the while Charlie is dying,
A liver soaked too long in the suds of rye,
Miss Heroin’s magic like a welding light,
Burning in his brain like a lethal flame,
Bird craving…