Sometimes I speak.
She gives me silence.
Sometimes she speaks
to fill the void.
Perhaps she sees it now:
I'm boring.
I want my space.
No crowds.
No dancing.
No desire.
Just work.
Just work.
Until I disappear.
But work is empty too.
So what remains
when the music dies?
Why keep reaching
for nothing?
Why keep searching
when I can't find
me,
you,
or why
I began?
Down to the flat two kilometers before the bridge
Where the old sheds stood
Random mediocre macracarpa
Sewagey trees with nothing but big trunks
A peppering of native bush hanging on
There set up your laboratory
Your sophisticated prison
There we can take the other ones
See what they really really believe
Tap into the depths of their mystery diseases
Put them away like cattle inside fences
Kill their parents make it look like suicide
Test the new pop drugs on these ones
See how readily veins buzz and euphoria dwells
Strap them in and see it all shake like those moments
Just before impact during a car accident
Sewage minds will flow
The cattle will be greased
And set alight to distract the cameras
No way across you want to get to know yourself
Sinking half way back to shore
Soon alone feel the heat as if it were cold
Those who said they'd be there and just ignore
Saw you coming on the sand and avoided
Walked back in the opposite direction before you get dry
What did you owe them what did they owe you
What a game to keep score
To hurt deep down to withdraw again
Just to return to the same disgrace
How you feel the tickle of outrage
creeping up on you again
The salt water slowly evapourates
But you've no towel to dry off
And curse the man that offers
And worship the man who took yours
She stared down and began to cry
Life was over
she tried to look up
tears flooded in
down hands together to pray
But no faith
They separate again
How gray it all seems
Tears make it further and further
Her resignation prevents her from wiping
They make it to the floor
Drops dry dreadfully into dust
She cries the rest of me out of her
She'll leave me behind pretty soon
Sharing her misery piece meal with someone else
Blood from the face
The celebrity lays back on the grass
his nose surgery went awry
Now he bleeds on his beach towel
The gorgeous women in the water unbeknownst
It flows out and panic hooks in
He attempts to stand but shame keeps him prostrate
It keeps coming out
Did the surgeon do a rush job
Was it a mistake to demand the discount
This would cost him dearly come film time
I'll just wrap my face in the towel, he said to himself
A crow sat on the edge of a solar panel
It seemed to snarl
It looked at the celebrity with hunger
Did it want to eat my nose, he thought
He grabbed his face in his towel and race to his car
He fainted as he opened the door
Doing more damage to his face
The fate reading crow got his prize
Entourage girls kept frolicking picture perfect
If we had just given up on wanting
We would have more than enough by now
More than we ever had before
There goes I living in the conditional
We lean on the cattle gate
Inside the slaughter shed
Labrynth of sheep death
Teenagers refused
If we had just gone with the flow
We'd be millionaires
It might have been mostly mine
Past the rock
on Devil's elbow
Past the old church nursery
The dead mulberrry
The governor's meager palace
If we had just given up on wanting
But noone ever warned us on the contrary
And we chased the absurd
Were refused and denied
Were so much less than we thought
Even the sky would shape the cloud into promises
None to grant
Just to steep the hunger
In a mountain tea above a makeshift abattoir
The packs were becoming a tall pile
The monitor called us to organize
We were told we could stay if we helped
So we did as we were told
Cleaning the cloak rooms
fixing the broken rides
unseen worker bees
Spanners and screw drivers
Blue uniforms
Though thank god
New shoes over holy socks
three round meals
Maintenence for the park
Voyeurs of the rich
Our grease stained uniforms
Not very good camouflage
