THERE is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake - that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's putting on
Burdensome beauty - for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.
Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, "Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.'
Vague memories, nothing but memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.
You are more beautiful than any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always brimming lake
Where those What have obeyed the holy law
paddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed,
For old sake's sake.
The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have
ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
WB Yeats, Broken Dreams.
If in memory, if in ancient times, we could crawl back to the past and live there, decided, tranquil, at peace with a past agony. The man who ran Brutus's was shot through the heart by a rent boy almost four decades ago now. Ruschutter's Bay Park was always a place of mystery and furtive assignations, the yachts of the wealthy bobbing in the too-blue bay, the tawdry trees spreading their leaves. Still around te corner is the yacht club, where the wealthy come and go.
But on the other side, sweeping up the hill, is the nest of streets leading up to Kings Cross, to the old cafes and fading draw queens, to the dusky clubs full of memories, to the knots of the dammed doing drug deals in their corners. And it was from here that we all swept down, in our fabulous youth, and gathered each night at Brutus's, the city then so small that all the different, all the sexual adventurers, could gather in one place and eye each other, and know that we were at home.
In the late 1960s in Sydney you just had to go to Brutus's if you wanted to understand the underbelly of the city; and that of course was exactly what he wanted to know. The door clanged as you entered, a bell deliberately announcing your arrival, and all heads would turn surreptitiously, checking out the new arrival. It was so dark it was almost impossible to see, and the lighting picked out everyone in a strange glow. Being young, he was particularly fond of a shirt which glowed only at Brutus's, but otherwise wasn't much. But he always knew when he got there he would be queen of the ball, so to speak, all eyes on his beauty, the centre of attention.
And the centre of great adventure. Brutus was a funny, grumpy, middle aged gay guy who ran his late night cafe as his own personal fiefdom, controlling everything. There was no alcohol, and in those far-off, naive days, the worst anyone could think of to do was to smoke a bit of hash before going and sitting in the glowing dark. Some of the handsomest men in the city gathered there late, always late. Brutus's didn't open till midnight, and never really started hopping till two or three in the morning. Sometimes there was almost no one there, sometimes it was packed.
It was all part of a grand adventure that can no longer be understood. Everything happens now, and no one looks twice. The trannies stumble down Oxford Street "eccied" off their heads, their eyes like saucers and their love freely available, their perfumed body odours available for rent. Nobody gives a damn. But back then all was secretive, all was illegal, gay men met under the cloak of darkness and secretive, fabulously famous clubs, the Purple Onion, Costello's, Capriccios, Oddys, they all formed part of a tight circle of must see's in a hidden network all the more fabulous for its underground nature.
News that Brutus had been shot spread rapidly, shocking everybody. For years afterwards, the cafe remained boarded up, the discrete sign for those in the know peeling slowly with the years. At first details were sketchy. But then it even made the papers. Shot straight through the heart at a hundred metres, the kid must have been an amazing shot, everyone said. Shot straight through the the heart when love went wrong, when he chased young men he should have left alone. There wasn't much sympathy, strangely enough. It was just another scandal of the day. Old Brutus had been such a prima donna, such a difficult prick to us all, that while we all loved to go his dark strange cafe and see who else was there, we didn't necessarily like him.
Straight through the heart at a hundred metres, that was all anyone could talk about. What an amazing shot that kid was. He knew him vaguely, one of the handsomest of the troubled young men. He was off to juvenile prison, and we never heard the results of the court case. We had all moved on. But for years it wasn't possible to drive down past that sign and think: I remember that cafe, the owner was killed by a rent boy, a friend of mine. No one quite knew why, exactly what it was that went on between them. And even now it's impossible, when driving past that park, with its dappled shadows and wretched trees, its clapped out toilet block and scraggly air, the city all around turbo charging into a new millennium, and think: what an amazing shot that kid was. An amazing shot. Straight through the heart.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7471924.stm
Former US President Bill Clinton has announced for the first time his support of fellow Democrat Barack Obama's bid for the White House.
Mr Clinton's wife Hillary was Mr Obama's biggest rival for the party nomination, and he was often critical of Mr Obama on the campaign trail.
Mr Clinton's spokesman said he was committed to working for an Obama win.
Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are to hold a joint rally on Friday, but Mr Clinton will be in Europe and will not attend.
"President Clinton is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States," said spokesman Matt McKenna.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23918059-5000117,00.html
HOW much do we need to change? Judge from this: that parents in this country now let their children starve to death.
Last November for instance, a seven-year-old girl was found dead from hunger in bed.
Two weeks ago in Brisbane, twin babies just 18 months old were found dead of starvation in their cot.
And yesterday in Adelaide, 14 malnourished children from two families were taken to hospital.
It's not for lack of money that such children starve.
In fact, they are, if anything, children of a welfare generation gone rancid, and what's desperately lacking is not cash but responsibility.
Take that seven-year-old girl .
She was the daughter of a tattooed disability pensioner who'd already had one daughter taken off him, reportedly for malnutrition, and now blamed the Department of Community Services for not checking more closely as he starved his second.
"DoCS is disgusting," he raged. "They should be shut down."
Or take the dead twins.
Their father said it wasn't his fault he hadn't noticed they were dying, since he'd broken up with his wife.
Yet he still lived in the family home and walked past his babies' bedroom each night on his way to his own.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23919264-662,00.html
MOTORISTS have had their strongest hint yet to prepare for higher petrol prices under the Rudd Government's plan to fight climate change.
As petrol prices nudged $1.70 yesterday, Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the Government's emissions trading scheme (ETS) had to include major carbon polluters.
"The transport sector, which contributes about 14 per cent of total greenhouse emissions, must be a part of any climate change strategy," Mr Albanese said.
"For the ETS to be effective, we know it needs to have as broad a coverage as possible."
Under a $50-a-tonne "carbon price", petrol prices would rise by about 17c a litre.
Opposition Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has dropped his earlier support for the inclusion of transport fuels in the scheme.
"That was the Howard government's policy," the former environment minister told Sky News.
He said that nobody expected petrol prices to rise as high as they had and motorists had already had to curb their fuel use.
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