Tom Waits - Town with No Cheer
(this is about the region where I live)

Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces
there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
there'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo
from Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander
with newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives
the train stopped in Serviceton less and less often

No there's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer
VicRail decided the canteen was no longer necessary
no spirits, no bilgewater and 80 dry locals
and the high noon sun beats a hundred and four
there's a hummingbird trapped in a closed down shoe store

This tiny Victorian rhubarb
kept the watering hole open for sixty five years
now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21st
wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
the train smokes down the xylophone
there'll be no stopping here
all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer

No Bourbon, no Branchwater
though the townspeople here
fought the VicRail decree tooth and nail
now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21st
wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
the train smokes down the xylophone
there'll be no stopping here
all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer

When I'm old
I will be a spinster
and i will drink beer originating from some old decrepit 20th century Wisconsin brewery
and i will lace it with archaic polish wodka

and I will spend all my nights at a bar with a stool
that I can reasonably commandeer on most occasions

and I will call all the old dames from my phonebook
with biro smeared phone numbers and zip codes no longer in service

and I'll play Bogart flicks on my holographic wrist-movie-display (they'll have them by that time)
while scoffing at all the hipsters that crowd into the joint
drinking their Jupiter Juice, and Silicon Slingsots, whatever is the fashion in forward times

and I will enjoy the unpretentious life
and revel in my almost-successes
and hilarious failures

and mourn the lost of art of human fallibility
and the sheer enjoyment it can bless us with

We cut our dreams into the epidermis of night
When we sleep, our feet descend into the waters fathomless

A child knows that the ocean is dark and opaque when the sun sinks.
We hold no fear
And pay no wonder

Yet when our lids submerge our eyes- desires sink
and pass under the surface, without clear foresight,
downward

When I dream, I cut little pinholes into the flesh
of summer heavens.
I scramble up onto the the ridge, over the isthmus
and up toward the heavens. All fours
and giddy, the surging passage of my adrenalin
the dazzling iris of Orion
the feel of dunes under my rough and regretful palms
and still I scramble upward.

I smell the winds
blown over from the Philippines,
I hear the world whispering to me
above the throaty gasps of the storm

When I dream I suffocate:
your hair is the Pacific depth,
the lick of midnight,
the dark brine in my nostrils
fluttering against consciousness

When I dream
you are delicately tripping amongst the driftwood
you are a sweater beyond the dazzle of the flames
a bird of paradise washed up on the waterline
a pod of vanilla cracked open and lilting

And I breathe you in slowly
once, and again,
rhythmically inhaling you, your memory and promise

consuming your essence
which my daylight heart dare not

I have a ring, this lucky ring.

I had others in the past - a ying yang ring, a spinning ring, a zigzag silver band, a skull, all kinds of unfashionable trinkets.

But now there's just the one - the Ace of Spades.

Sometimes it gets attention, mostly from bartenders who ask if I play poker.

I was talking with a couple of girl friends the other day after my year-long breakup, and I asked what they thought I might change about myself. Straight away the ring was brought up. At the time I took the advice with a little surprise, but not much notice, thinking that my lucky ring was a part of me.

Since then my finger has begun to swell up for the first time in my life. I'm mystified as to the medical explanation, but it can only be a sign. Now, discomfort aside, I want to get the ring off as quickly as I can. It's not simply a matter of growing up and injecting conservatism into my dress sense, I couldn't tell you exactly what the feeling is or where it emanates from, beyond the obvious time-old instinct of ridding myself of something in the hope that it will change things for the better.

It's a feeling of panic, of desperation, 6 months of stress and disillusionment bubbling up under my ring and into the blood vessels of the finger beyond. Rivers of tension flowing into this hotspot, years of frustration and longing building up slowly and surely and ebbing away at the grains of my life, until all I can do is walk around in a dazed mania, longing to cut the metal shackle off and be free.

Lying in the dark it occurs to me that the ring may have actually been unlucky, and I have spent 7 years bound by it

7 year of bad luck

if i could kiss you i would.

if I could fuck you i might
if i could love you, make love to you, i would.
if i could even reveal my feelings, my intentions, my sentiments,
i would, i would, i would, i would,

friendship, appreciation, obsession, frustration, sympathy, elucidation, expression, gratitude,
longing.
Undefined need.

but i'm not sure you'd understand,
i'm not sure you'd appreciate the thought,
not even sure you remember me.

not honestly sure if it's what I actually want.

There are so many dark
and wonderful things that flit across my tired
clavical when I lie in the dark syrup of night.

Not a pervasive evil,
but good intentions of a flawed and
shrouded form.

By the time I approached the ancient pylons
all was quiet
and the sun was beginning its ascent,
commencing to burp a gentle hue across the earth's horizon

a cough, a stammer, a gentle glow.

I approached the bridge on shaky feet,
with reluctant providence, scant recommendation
and next to no
support.

I came of my own volition,
without prompting and of a singular free will...
for however long that freedom may extend.

I came as one man submerged and immersed
in the humble miasma of loss and failure.
Even as my stomach grumbled I was aware of a
power, a vitality
that throbbed in the water passing below
my weary and shamed soles.

The stench of the river below
was as if a slap, a wretched scent
of all things insatiable and unsalacious
that were yet to befall me, and occupy all my remaining
putrid hours.

If i kneel down
and strain what remains of my olfactory prowess
slowly
i can sense all the demons that helicopter beyond my sight
that circumnavigate my dumb and mute and harrowed resolve

and the echoes of mocking laughter
that linger beyond the thunderous waterfall of my waking thoughts.

each drip a doubt,
each drop a regret.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Hope that your festivities this weekend will be astounding and outrageous and unbridled and incomparable

I wish that we were on a desert island with war paint with an endless supply of rum and pineapples, with all your friends and a massive bonfire and stereo system, just dancing around screaming and worshipping the distant constellations in the heavens above us
hollering and hooting and spazzing out to the big beat - all the whales and dolphins would swim up to the surface just to check out the BIG CRAZY Bass which is disturbing the waves with its vibrations


seriously
it amazes me how long that you have been a part of my life.
I dont understand how or why you are a part, or what has kept you around so long.
I am a fuckup and a procrastinator and a coward at best, and if i stumble across amazing people it is only by accident and not by expectation.

Sometimes I wonder why you haven't lost interest in me, and to use a cliche i never take you for granted.
i feel comfortable with you, and enthusiastic, energetic, i get a rush when i communicate with you. I feel as if I have a crazy sapphire soul surfing the waves beside me, urging and pushing and thrilling me onwards into the dark chasm with the oceans of opportunity crashing against the ever-promised horizons beyond

I have fun with you. I admit that sometimes I see weaknesses in you, but if I do it's only because you reveal them to me openly, and for that i feel flattered and honoured that you would trust me enough to reveal your scars.
It helps me, it nourishes me, it makes me confront my own shortcomings, failures and drak secrets. I love that side of our relationship, as grim as it may be. I cherish the fact that we have grown so much together, despite being so far away and in such infrequent contact, and leading such weird and fantastically variant lives.

I love the idea of you. Sometimes in my head when I am confronted by criticism or conservatism in those around me, i long for your company, to have you beside me in my crew, so we can start screaming like motherfuckers and jump off that cliff together
More than once I have asked my self what would she do in this situation?

You are a dawn
you are kerosene
you are an acetylene torch on cursed flesh
you are the asphodel blossoms blooming from the ash and lava
you are the last breeze of the sunset blowing through the palms of the caribbean
you are scorpio lighting the peaks of the atlantic as it slithers southward toward morning
you are the white blizzard dancing in the morning light, skipping over the lake and the shivering pines

you are my cherished friend
and i wish i had more words to help you understand how well i wish you on your birthday


i am drinking polish vodka
and listening to old rustic mexican cantina music
and fanning myself in the humid near-summer night
imagining you dancing

Don't know what else to tell you right now,
or what i can say to inspire you and energize you for the journey ahead,
so i'll just quote ole Tom:

My daddy told me, lookin back,
The best friend you'll have is a railroad track
So when I was 13 said, I'm rollin' my own
And I'm leavin' Missouri and I'm never comin' home

And I'm lost
And I'm lost
I'm lost at the bottom of the world



Hope you are lost in the bottom of your drink for just
long enough to touch the fluttering swan who stumbles around in the bottom of your soul
but not too long to find your way home
past your old neighbourhood
and the ratty thrift stores and the beat-up liquor stores
and the fading movie theatre thats
FALLING APART
and the shoe store with the paint flaking, where you stop for a pirhouette and a kiss,
then the all night diner
and the antique store with the mannequin that never smiles

do a ring around the elm tree
and skip across the old train tracks
and lift your bottle once more, for the moon, for venus, for dreams and orion,
the bright fields of light that hover above you.

stretch out on the grass
and kiss your pillow,
pick a clover and toast st patrick before
you fall into a deep sleep




SMILE
IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY
AND LORD KNOWS YOU FUCKING ROCK

The fall has been,
The winter gone.

My bones are sore, and the houseplants in my courtyard are burning up in the noons
when before they were shrivelling in the dark.

My car is well insured
and my taxes paid.

I have an old side table with a leather top,
and when the sun slips between the office buildings
and night falls over the stinking alley that I cautiously call home,
I haul my flaking carcass over the edge of my sturdy bedframe
and flap open Moby Dick.

I yearn for swells.

I pop open the cork on a cheap bottle of port.
I toss it over into the darkness beyond my rickety
plank closet.

My ears hear cork on wood,
but somehow it it the Southern Ocean,
the Norwegian Sea,
the cork bobs away and through the untruthful murk of night
I see its dip and arc across the briney bluffs of my shithole
room.

I rise up and swap the port
for gasoline cognac.

I click my fingers and pace, strut,
sway over my deck
and wander across my forecastle.
There is a constant glow from the computer
so I check the stockmarket,
I investigate the definition of strange words,
I ebay war medals
baseball shirts
rare rocks from lake baikal.

I trip over bills and old newspapers,
employment sections.
I copy DVDs and file them away carefully
in the vague compulsion that I'll have them
tucked away safely
FOREVER

Forever is a mistake.
Forever is a misdirected catalogue in the post,
a birthday that passed you by,
a restaurant meal that I
definitely
did not order.

Forever is a cork
and it's floating away with my life grimly
hanging on.

The further I go in life,
the more I long to travel backward.
The more pay rises I receive,
the poorer I seem to end up.
The earlier I go to bed,
the tighter the grip of exhaustion
upon my red eyes.

Tomorrow is a manic dance
and I will do my best to fling headlong toward it,
I'll promise to jump in at the deep end
for what my pissweak promises are worth.

I'll text you or kiss your cheek
or swear to meet by the light of the silvery moon,
we'll do coffee,
I'll try to focus on everything you say
and all that you've become
and everything I've missed.

I'''ll wrench every detail into my
frail talons, I'll skull down your foibles
and trivials and joys, I'll hurt myself and temper my resolve
and write myself notes
in a diary of sorts
so that the settings of my camera are ok
and that the colours will be vivid, the light and focus
maximised
and for fucks sake of course i'll be sure to
charge up the battery and i'll
remember
remember
I'll swear black and blue
and i'll dedicate an hour every day to an epic
an ode, a tale of us and the enormity of you
and us
back then
that time
eternal
immortal

and i'll blaze it across the stratosphere forever
until we're beyond light and the dateline
and we're running over meridians
we're surer than the morning star
and lighter than a feather breath falling
east across the tradewinds

and everyone can stop and stare
and tell us that we've made it, we're across the bridge of sorrows
here on the farthest shore
and we can party tonight then sleep in the dawn,
the leaves will fall into the swimming pool but we won't wake to
scoop them up

we'll not stir
our dancing toes

we'll be leisurely
and free of mania, and doubt
and those who may doubt us, or publicize our doubts.
the price of petrol will be irrelevant
and we won't need to drive around
scowering for houses.
People will birth, people will abort, people will
carry their burdens to darker places.
London, Tokyo, New York, Beijing,
we won't need a taxi, we won't need a second job,

under the covers
with the leaves stuffing up our pool

comatose,
voided, preserved in a great silence
i will fall away
and dream black dreams of trust
and faith
and tell myself one last time that when i wake
i'll be in love with you
and perfection will finally have descended with aplomb
bliss will have breakfast in bed ready
and delirium will be stroking my hair
whispering knowingly
that I've arrived,
happiness had brought back the cd's it borrowed,
joy wants to know if we're up for brunch
and
I won't need to grin and pretend anymore

forever will be here

Apartment For Rent

Well, it ain't no use, it ain't no good
And there's too many ghosts
in this neighborhood
Our quaint little walk up is bringing me down
I'll have to find another crib
on the other side of town

The old Murphy bed and the empty chest of drawers
And a little dinette set, I'll stroll across the floor
And the trash cans in the alley, well they're
rattlin' and
sayin'
That there's an apartment for rent
On a rainy September day

Apartment for rent
Furnished with blue lights,
baby
Apartment for rent
And the market's open all night

Well you see, I'm sweeping out the cobwebs
The lady she got away
There's an apartment for rent
On a rainy September day

Well, I'm pouring over the classified section
You see, she's lost all her
affection for me
I was drinking and smoking
I was staying out all night long
When you needed me here with you at home

There's an apartment for rent
Furnished with blue lights,
baby
Apartment for rent
And the market's open all night

See, I've been sweeping up the cobwebs
The lady got away
There's an apartment for rent
There's an apartment for rent
There's an apartment for rent
On a rainy September day

Apartment for rent

- Tom Waits

Roll The Dice

if you're going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don't even start.

if you're going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you'll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you're going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, it's
the only good fight
there is.


- Charles Bukowski

little ghost
lost caboose
little ants butting heads
rams in the field
carp after dark
mindless microbes, plankton feeling their way
cautiously through the dark

my words run over themselves
they cull themselves and cross themselves out
my feelings are carnivorous and they consume themselves
efficiently

you are the only thing that makes sense
even still

I hear the train horns in the night
and the dogs chained in the yard, chasing their tails
I consider old tales
I contemplate regression

and running away

Cyclamen, Cicada, Black Prince
Aperitif.

Daylight Saving time arrives and the wait for dusk is agonizing.
Hiding behind blinds the slices of light play off my skin. I peer out from behind lidded eyes eager for the heat to melt away and leave me some peace in the brief blackness before bed.

I wander out my front gate between the rashes of lavender and the summer breeze niggles me as I place my footsteps cautiously over the ridges of cracked bitumen and swat mosquitoes away from my nose. Cats cross my path and prowl around me in wide circles, flicking their tails languidly in the thick air.

My thoughts wander....the warm breeze tickles my neck incessantly.

Bats block out the moon as they wing toward the shelter of the park. Their shrieks are hollow and shrill, and once I lose them in the dim sky the silence oozes around me again.

My neck flushes hot and I can still feel where your lips were, where your teeth bit in.

 
Summer is finally beginning to creep into this antarctic town.

I am sitting by my window watching the sun trickle away and sucking on ice cubes slowly.

I have the Cowboy Junkies playing, but it's turned right down so as to be only barely audible above the sound of the train horns in the distance and the lorikeets screeching in the trees.

My body feels relaxed and my skin smells fresh from the shower, but every corner of my mind is weary and overdrawn.

I take a swig from the almost empty bottle of dark rum on my shelf (behind the maps and the seashells, the old wrapping paper) and it burns my lungs like running blindly against the breeze.

I cross my heart for no good reason and tug gently at my dry hair.

I chew strawberries slowly, and think about you.

I think I'm old enough know that I've truly begun to understand the concepts of beginning and ending. When I was younger and less humble I always believed that they were simple concepts, straightforward ideas that could be learned through a few simple observations. Since then I've gradually come to understand the complexities that were invisible to me earlier - i can see now that a beginning is different to a start, and a stop is not equivalent to an ending. Starting and stopping, birth and death - these came to mind whenever the topic of endings arose. For a long time life was the only context in which i could contemplate endings - 'Death comes as the end'.

But I am still alive, even though I've felt with utter certainty several times over the years that my life had ended. So it seems that endings can be plural, they can overlap, they can be infinite, they can spawn a beginning just as a beginning suggests an end. That forced me to rethink - How do you begin again after you've ended?

I think in a person's life there are times of beginning and times of ending. Just like one year you might feel like swimming all the time, the next you are keen to go running. Whereas in summer you had a taste for white wine, in winter you crave red. Sometimes you need to close off a part of your life, and other times you need to dust it off again and pull it out of your wardrobe.

So I've had to learn how to begin again. Not so profound, maybe, probably obvious to most, but it seems to me a challenging idea - to begin again even after the end has been and gone. I used to think that I would fall in love with one woman. If I was careful and astute I would recognize her and not fall into any detours or traps, and my life would unfold like a movie - start to finish. Later, I grew a bit more pessimistic and seemed to align myself with the idea that everyone has a certain amount of relationships in their life, which come and go and pass the time. But I didn't like that idea either.

These days I don't know what I believe. I feel a little bit foolish, occasionally a failure, and every now and then I remember something wonderful from my past that I never dreamed would befall me and I grin in dumb wonder. I think its probably ok to be a little unsure of your life's course most of the time. I often look at other people and worry that I should be more certain about where I'm headed and how my next beginning will pan out, but the flipside of this problem is that sometimes beginnings end suddenly for no predictable reason. You've just got to keep turning to a blank page and pick your pen up and trust that a new possibility will occur to you.

I like the idea that the universe is expanding. In this world of uncertainty and ticking clocks it comforts me to know that no matter which parts of my life end, change, or begin again, there will always be a new star and a new patch of space being born every day. Even if the world chokes and dies, even if our sun explodes, even if America and Iran nuke each other, there was something before all this, before us and this framework. Something enduring. We came from a beginning that will probably never end, and even if I wind up as a puff of gas or a rock or electricty in a distant sky, there is a future of possibilities assured for me - for us all. When I think of the idea of possibilities I think of companionship, of twins, of a beginning and an ending that will always repeat themselves. So I suppose that as long as we have a future we will never really be alone.

we clambered up the tree outside her window and watched the sun set over a whole lot of nothing much until the shores of antarctica.

we watched the colours dance and play across the surfaces of the vintage stores and factory outlets, the halal butchers and the cobbled alleys, the faded pub signs with the old clydesdales pawing at the mild air hanging over the awkard pause between autumn and something lonelier.

we peered at the world that spread beaneath us like egyptologists holding a candle flicker to the grooved stones that told the past in reeds and running rivers and midnight cats with business unknowable.

we breathed in the night as it swept over us in a stealthy tide of intimacy and relief and a growing loss. I leaned down and kissed her pale skin in slow bowing gestures as crows fluttered lazily onto the church towers and perched to witness our last night with quizzical, oily eyes.

the soft downy hairs on her neck were bronze in the last bursts of daylight, and I whispered stories about all the places that I'd been, all the days of my life that had been first days, new days, beginnings. I described the clouds and mountains in devoted detail, the way they seemed from the aeroplane window when I arrived in some place new - the patchwork fields and streets like veins carrying the blood of time back to a lifesource that would renew me.

I said a great many things that night which I thought could combat an ending, could somehow blow off the fine film of dust that had descended on our love. I swum in the sound of her slow breathing and the balm of her delicate skin, I took the biggest swig I could as if a drunk about to be thrown out or an ailing traveller finishing their course of antibiotics even after the fever had long vanished.

We lingered in the tree until the icey wind tickled at the ends of her hair and then we climbed down in complete silence. We held each other tightly by the waist, each a fugitive trying desperately to apprehend the other. My face was buried in her hair when I heard a fragile moan leave her throat, and we came together softly and kissed slowly until our hearts had sunk down deep enough into the pits of our stomach so as no longer to be a conductor of our thoughts or nerves or anything tender.

We released each other slowly and walked away with heavy heads and lifeless limbs, every part of us sore and unwilling to function. Above me the street lights buzzed and hissed as they peered over the hills for some sign of Winter approaching over the crashing sea, lighting my footprints as I passed and burning the night above me - consuming time.

I looked backed just once, I'm not sure if she ever did.

What would you do if somebody gave you
twenty thousand dollars to get you back to zero
and promised you time
and space, room to breathe and sunshine to soothe your bones
and ice cubes to fill your glass
and a lawn chair so that you could look at the stars
and sip your beer - take your time,
fill your window sill with shiney dimes lined up in a row,
feel safe for a change and fall asleep peaceful.

Find a job that doesn't make you throw up,
find a nice car so that you can drive down to monterey
and smell the salt clinging to the hairs on your pale wrists,
your browning wrists.

Don't have to wait on the street corner for public transport in the freezing dawn,
feel free to watch a Hitchcock movie,
buy a recipe book, make a nice dinner.
Open your windows and let the warm air in,
don't worry yourself over conjunctivitis or sore throats or influenza
(take a load off, watch the baseball).

buy a small table, maybe a desk, boil some tea and invite someone over,
rent a dvd and eat chicken on the floor, wander outside in the dark
and chase cicadas until you catch one or double over laughing instead.
Learn to play the guitar your little sister gave you,
get a dog or maybe a cat, walk in the mountains,
get a tattoo and go rollicking between the hydrangea bushes.

Find some boots that fit, order Chinese food and throw a party,
dress up in fancy dress, grow a garden, read your paper on Saturdays,
make some good juju and sail a boat on the ocean.

Buy some octopus ink from a curiosity shop
and wake up every morning and write about what it's like -
post your letters to me in envelopes sealed with stamps from
nineteen eighty five, from the year two thousand and one,
from three years into the future - five, nine, thirty...

Write every day and tell me how good it is,
let me know every taste and every joy and every star and where it lies
let me know what you ate and whether the Giants won and was it a full moon
tell me when you go dancing and when you stay at home
and tell me if you're getting by and if you're comfortable
and if you leave at the end of the day and feel an excited tingle in your stomach
and feel the universe hugging you close and then releasing you slowly to see the expanses of light all around you..

let me know if you're safe
and if you're in love
or just happy with the friendships you have.
Let me know what you're driving
and if the rips in your jeans are holding together
and if your teeth are still in your mouth.
Does your hair need cutting,
Are your fingers dry,
Having you been singing Karaoke,
Have you run to the end of the horizon - what did you find there?

Let me know,
make it vivid,
send me smells in bottles
and sand in jars.
Keep telling me how good life is
and I may just be there with you soon.

I was walking down Glenlyon the other day, downing a Tiger beer and crunching on Mexicana Doritos, minding my own business when a tubby kid in the park yelled out at me to:
"fuck off ya rich poofter!"

No kidding, he must have been about 10 or 11.

So I wander over to the monkey bars trying to figure out some words of wisdom that I could dish to this little snapper,
and straight up he asks me: is that real beer?
sure is
are you gonna finish it?
whatta you think?
well can I have some?

So I let this kid drink a fair swig of my beer, and everything was squared up.

No shit!
His name's Jason and I swear we are best friends now.