"Beach Comber”
p. 88 · Read in the full issue
No visible means of support, was the charge— No visible means of support.
The police sergeant said we were vagrants at large, Wrote “penniless” in his report; The magistrate read it and gave us ten days For sleeping out under the stars.
Society sought to reform our wild ways By making us sleep behind bars.
No visible means of support, they all said — No visible means of support.
No job, no address, no money, no bed — Yet we were the richest in court: For we’d slept on a palm-frond beneath a ti-tree That shed leaves on our limbs from above, While Venus shone brightly in radiant glee, For she knew Lupe and I were in love.
Jack Thornton.