scouting for talent in the streets
(for the next Michael Jackson or Pavarotti
or anyone who can make me money)
I spotted there in the streets of Melbourne
a bloodhound and a puppy, each with a violin
and each playing –
the puppy a natural, the bloodhound indistinct

I spread out on the floor
the talent contract for a team
and the bloodhound signed with a grin;
but just as the puppy lifted its paw
another dog came running, picked up the puppy
and ran off with the speed of lightning

“****! What’s that about?”
I asked the bloodhound

“Oh,” said the bloodhound sheepishly
*“That’s his mum, my wife – she doesn’t want
him to be a musician like me…
she’d rather he grows up to be a doctor!”

Now,
My only wish is to prove to you
How much emotion my heart can hold.
Show you that I think you
Are beautiful
In every sense of the word.

And I love looking into your eyes,
My darling.

Ripples on the surface,
light shined through
though
always too black to see beneath.
I've felt this way, before;
I've seen the haze and
walked within the maze and
been buried beneath the sand and
and
and
and
this isn't a dream we weave, though, it's all too much to ignore;
And all my friends, they always seem to leave;
perhaps I seem a bore.
I tried to open that
amazing door
and be within the beautiful mind
that beautiful time
which some have called "Memory,"
others "Past," "Happiness," "Solace,"
"Escape,"
though,
all I may call it now is
"What Was Once But Now Is Dead."
I see red
streaming before my eyes,
screaming into my frontal lobe
just a dream to the wise
but to a fool a deadly probe;
a seedling foully planted
within the loamy soil of the mind,
it had been granted passage
as each root unwinds.
I know I've felt this way, before,
though I can't know what's in store,
I haven't read the yore nor
that most evil, ancient lore
so all I want is more.
I must be ignored.
I must be killed.
Burn me.
Light me on fire.
Stack my rusty bones upon the pyre.
Give to me the power of the Sun,
you my planet that slowly drifts away.
I see red
I see fire
I see great flames a-dancing
I see the Sun
I see life
I see redemption and
I see it shut right in my miserable face.
I see you continue to float on off
into the empty darkness of unreachable
space
those unimaginable distances like
the passages between Memory,
Past, Happiness, Solace,
Escape.
I see you wind on off through
the narrow hallways of my frontal lobe
finally turning back before my face.
I see the terrible, pregnant eclipse
of your body before my body,
rocky to red-hot Sun,
take to my heart like an ellipse
.
.
.
I've been naughty
I am on the run
.
.
.
No light shines through here,
no ripples on inky landscapes
.
.
.
It is dark.
                 .
                  .
                   I have no light,
                   I have no Sun,
                I have no planets,
                 I have no dream,
              I have no memories.
                                                  .
   ­                                                .
                                                    I lose it all
                                          and yet I keep losing.
                                                         ­                       .
                                                                                  .
                                                    ­                                I still feel like a dream inside, though
                                                                                                    I know it's merely
                                                                                      What Was Once But Now Is Dead.
                                                           ­                                                                 ­                    .
                                           ­                                                                 ­                                  .
                             ­                                                                 ­                                                  .
             ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­     .
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                               .
                                ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­ .
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                                               .
                                                               ­                            .     .     .                                                    .
          ­                                                                 ­                  death                       .
                                                               ­    .
.

Are you struck with her figure and face?
    How lucky you happened to meet
With none of the gossiping race,
    Who dwell in this horrible street!
They of slanderous hints never tire;
    I love to approve and commend,
And the lady you so much admire,
    Is my very particular friend!

How charming she looks — her dark curls
    Really float with a natural air;
And the beads might be taken for pearls,
    That arc twined in that beautiful hair:
Then what tints her fair features o'erspread -
    That she uses white paint some pretend;
But, believe me, she only wears red
    She's my very particular friend!

Then her voice, how divine it appears
    While carolling: "Rise gentle moon;"
Lord Crotchet lastnight stopped his ears,
    And declared that she sung out of tune;
For my part, I think that her lay
    Might to Malibran's sweetness pretend;
But people won't mind what I say —
    I'm her very particular friend!

Then her writings — her exquisite rhyme
    To posterity surely must reach;
(I wonder she finds so much time
    With four little sisters to teach!)
A critic in Blackwood, indeed.
    Abused the last poem she penned;
The article made my heart bleed —
    She's my very particular friend!

Her brother dispatched with a sword,
    His friend in a duel, last June;
And her cousin eloped from her lord,
    With a handsome and whiskered dragoon:
Her father with duns is beset,
    Yet continues to dash and to spend —
She's too good for so worthless a set —
    She's my very particular friend!

All her chance of a portion is lost,
    And I fear she'll be single for life;
Wise people will count up the cost
    Of a gay and extravagant wife:
But tis odious to marry for pelf,
    (Though the times are not likely to mend,)
She's a fortune besides in herself —
    She's my very particular friend!

That she's somewhat sarcastic and pert,
    It were useless and vain to deny;
She's a little too much of a flirt,
    And a slattern when no one is by:
From her servants she constantly parts,
    Before they have reached the year's end;
But her heart is the kindest of hearts —
    She's my very particular friend!

Oh! never have pencil or pen,
    A creature more exquisite traced;
That her style does not take with the men,
    Proves a sad want of judgment and taste;
And if to the sketch I give now,
    Some flattering touches I lend;
Do for partial affection allow —
    She's my very particular friend!

They watch the world,
with open eyes.
They haunt the world,
with an open mind.
They see you move,
as you live in this world.

But behind these walls,
lies a deep dark universe.
One where the light can't shine through.
A world where they lurk,
they play and hide.
Behind these walls, there's a world inside.

If you dare to look,
or even hear.
Go ahead face your fear.
You'll join this world,
one cruel day.
So sad it'll be...
But they can't hear you say...

Behind these walls,
lies a deep dark universe...
One where the light can't shine through
A world where they lurk,
and play and hide...
Behind these walls, there's a world inside.....

You were mine
You owned me but I thought I bought you
To the right, straight on ‘til morning, priceless
Tundra frontier vast expanse of possibility final
Let’s settle down
Our place very fine
Satan’s little acre
Where work got done you oversaw
To the left, we kissed deep, drunk each other
Families commingled extended
Biblically umbilical making babies
Behind the audacious bleachers
Our promise broken unfulfilled
Until our hot integrity solders this metallurgy
Together again like joint work power coupled
With terpsichorean abandon unleashed
I’ll stop the world
Board the white van
Emerge my own man
And you are his