Browsing By The Beach Poem by Frank Bana

I wore my father's raincoat on the beach
I took the golden road to town
Went looking for a record store
There was not even one in reach

The songs are hidden now, online
Lost are pleasures and the sins
Of browsing through the record bins
Hangers'-on tips, delivered live
Spontaneous crucial debates
Posters of forgotten gigs
The sweet and heavy scent
Of Indian patchouli sticks

So I went back to the windswept beach
Where joggers run to earphone beats
I looked out to the lonely sea
With Random on my MP3

For in these disembodied days
Browsing pleasures come alone
In the fresh sheets of your bed
The rocking shoreline of your head

If I were wealthy, nonetheless
I'd build a shack beside the beach
And have you come and spend an hour
Browsing through old LP discs
For which you'd pay a dollar each
And carry happily away

The sand between your toes
With sandals on your feet.