THE CITY You said...... "I will go to another land, I will try another sea Another city will turn up, better than this one Here everything I do is condemned in advance And my heart - like a dead man's - lies buried How long can my mind remain in this swamp? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I gaze On the ruins of my life here, where I've spent And botched and wasted so many years" You will find no new land, you will find no other seas This city will follow you You will wander the same streets and grow old In the same neighbourhoods Your hair will turn white in the same houses And you will always arrive in this city Abandon any hope of finding another place No ship, no road can take you there For just as you've ruined your life here in this backwater You've destroyed it everywhere on earth.

THAT PLACE It's not that, that place has gone It's that, that place is back again That melancholy little town Pinned between craggy mountains And the sea lashed rocky shores It's too cold to go out by day It's too hot by night to sleep They don't look at you, not in the eye They serve you your drink and smoke You drink and smoke Repeat, drink and smoke Repeat.... Stare at the dirt, your worn shoes Your worn knees, your worn out Too tired this time to travel, unravel Roll and die again It's that place ….again It's that place ….again

A BREAK IN THE UNIVERSE There once was a world with it's flag unfurled A man with a plan, we don't understand There was a girl with a heart as pure as snow And a politician full of suspicion Dreams are all we have now We move so close to the end of things To the end of things Science tells us hold back, breathe, look beyond money Hold back beyond war, there is nothing there but pain Something broken in the universe Meanwhile, we can look to family We can enjoy the warmth of delighted children Who know nothing of Wall Street We just reach for a cuddle, worth everything We can look to family We can enjoy the warmth of delighted children Who Know nothing of Wall Street We just reach for a cuddle worth everything And then meanwhile Mr. Putin insists on doing... What is that thing he does? Like many many like him, many like him It's just sadly, business as usual Something broken in the universe.

PARASHOOTS I remember during my childhood in kinder garden The teacher would bring out a big parachute And all the kids would gather around in a circle And we'd get under this large parachute But they would throw the parachute up into the air We'd all hold on too Like one would take a sheet and flip it And watch it rise into the air and come back down over us This is what it used to be like... parachutes But they don't do that anymore But they don't do that anymore This is what it used to be like They don't do that anymore... parachutes But they don't do that anymore... parachutes But they don't do that anymore... parachutes

DESIRES Like beautiful bodies of those who died young, Tearfully interned in a grand mausoleum With roses by their heads and jasmine at their feet So seem those desires that have passed Without fulfilment, without a single night of pleasure Or one of it's radiant mornings. AN OLD MAN Deep in the back of the noisy cafe An old man sits alone, bent over a table With his newspaper spread out before him. He feels contempt for his miserable old age And recalls how little he enjoyed the years When he had strength, eloquence and beauty. He knows he has aged, he feels it, he sees it And yet the time when he was young seems like yesterday How short a span! how short! He recalls how Prudence kept deceiving him How he had listened when she lied to him, saying "Tomorrow. There's plenty of time". What folly ! He counts up the desires he held back, the joys he squandered Each forfeited delight returning to mock his senseless caution But, with all the thinking and reminiscence The old man grows dizzy He falls asleep, propped against the table In the back of the cafe.

SHE TOLD ME ABOUT THE DEATH RAY. I am just so angry . We are watching penguins, in the evening. A cold night in the northeast of Tasmania. Oh, fuck they are doing penguin things, making penguin whoopee. Making smells and noises. We catch the penguin show on our phones, oh fuck. There is nothing to do. Penguin is nearly spell like sanguine. There are four classic temperaments, defined by Pavlov, borrowed from the Greeks, which can describe individuals as: sanguine (optimistic, social, and associated with the element of air); melancholic (analytical, quiet, earth); choleric (short-tempered, irritable, fire); and phlegmatic (relaxed, peaceful, water). It is a windy day. Just watching the wind blow around the washing on the line. The clothes look like ideas and concepts being blown around by gusts of interpretation, expectation, and anticipation. I am hanging out my dirty, dirty, dirty underwear for all to see. Only now my underwear is clean. There is nothing to do. I thought it was going to be like the Jetsons when I grew up. I thought we would have space, hotels, space hotels and flying carrrrrzzzz. Not the case. We got Zoom though. Sitting in a train for 2.5 hours, travelling down the Earth. Downwards. South. I am travelling 130 kilometres South. My mind is blank, indifferent. Passing all these places whizzing by those in-between towns which I will never ever visit. Or even want to. I wonder why people even choose to live there. Is it by choice? I don’t think so. How bored must the young people be. The train continues. I continue looking. Not thinking at all. Not thinking at all. Not thinking at all Not thinking at all. Just look looking at ‘nearly’ mountains, nearly mountains that I will never crime, I will never climb them either. Admiring at rivers I will never swim or sail. Closer to the city, I see the little blue house on the other side of the river, with a little wharf and tinny boat. You can only get to it by boat. There is a huge cliff face behind it. I would like to buy it, and live there, but I never will. It is too risky. The ocean levels are rising. The climate is changing, irrespective as to whether we made it happen or not. And I am risk adverse. But. She is not. There is always there, she is always a ‘she’, isn’t there. She lives in my phone, always listening. My true love. As long as I subscribe. She told me about the ‘death ray’. I t’s my turn soon. People are trying to keep it quiet. Never reported in the media. So, we are counting down, day by day. Meanwhile, all these people in my carriage, I will never see them again. I will never talk with them. I will never know anything about them other than … they … caught this train today. But in reality, I have no interest of any kind in any of them. I wasn’t ‘put’ on this Earth to make friends. There are no network possibilities. Actually, I wasn’t ‘put’ on this Earth, there is no ‘d-d-destiny’. Stuff happens. I happened. Someone in the carriage has probably looked at me and thought the same thing. She told me about the death ray. She told me about the death ray. She told me about the death ray. I am just so angry. I am just so angry. Can I offer you a distortion of the truth before I lose my mind. There is too much lead in the water.

THE LOVE SONG OF J.ALFRED PRUROCK Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants and oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time, there will be time to wonder Do I dare, do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin? To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to a crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— “That is not what I meant at all; that is not it, at all.” Would it have been worth while, after all, Would it have been worth while, Impossible to say what I mean As if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” Do I dare eat a peach? Wear white flannel trousers, or walk upon a beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

THE BARON. A violent drug baron was terrorising the neighbourhood. He thought nothing of stabbing or gunning down those who opposed him. He had the arrogance to do these tasks in the street in broad daylight if he felt it would put terror into the hearts of his competitors. But he always managed to escape capture due to lack of evidence. One evening in the pub, he stabbed a young man for no apparent reason and without batting an eyelid. All the locals looked the other way and carried on drinking. They knew it was suicide to stand up to him. ... All except one. A small frail-looking man called Charlie. The only witness to stay behind and talk to the police. Charlie's evidence ultimately sent the vicious baron to gaol. About 15 years later, Charlie read in the local paper that the baron had been released on parole for good behaviour. At the time Charlie thought nothing of it and just carried on as normal. A few weeks later Charlie was walking down the street to the local shop, when he spotted a man in the distance, walking toward him on the opposite side of the road. It was the baron, and he recognised Charlie. Without averting his gaze, or even looking for traffic, the baron quickened his pace and made a beeline for Charlie. Any other man would have quickly run in the opposite direction. But Charlie stood his ground. In fact he stopped and stared at the terrifying figure pacing angrily toward him. At a distance of ten feet, the Baron pointed a finger at Charlie, and in a menacing voice cried "You're the bloke who put me inside!" Charlie froze ... Perhaps even for a brief moment he watched his life pass before his eyes... Then the Baron reached out his hand, smiled, and said "I wanna shake your hand. That was the best thing anyone's ever done for me! Thanks mate!"

THE PASSAGE Those things he only timidly imagined as a schoolboy stand open now Revealed before him. He goes to parties, stays out all night, gets swept off his feet. And this is perfectly fitting ( for our art ...that is ) As his blood , young and hot is pleasure's prize. Lawless, erotic ecstasy overcomes his body. And his young limbs give in. In this way a simple youth becomes worthy of our regard And briefly he to crosses over to the Exalted World Of Poetry This appealing boy with his blood young and hot.

AS YOU SET OUT FOR ITHACA As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, Full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: You’ll never find things like that on your way As long as you keep your thoughts raised high, As long as a rare excitement Stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them Unless you bring them along inside your soul, Unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, What joy, you enter harbours you’re seeing for the first time; May you stop at Phoenician trading stationsto buy fine things, Mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, Sensual perfume of every kind—as many sensual perfumes as you can; And may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, Wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, You’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

DELPHI Before the oracle could begin there was a ritual Priests sprinkled a goat with cool water. If it didn’t shiver there would be another month’s wait If it shivered, they could proceed, sacrificing it and burning the flesh. Rising smoke signalled the oracle was open. Next, the Pythia was purified by fasting and bathing in a spring. They seem to have burned laurel leaves to cleanse her Or else she chewed them. Purple veiled, she was taken down Into a dark, enclosed inner sanctum and placed on a gilded tripod That teetered over the fissure. I wonder if her heart was panting? I wonder if she was afraid? The room was low and dim, she trembled As fumes rose from the decomposing dragon Sly, sweet, lifting vapours that lurched her into a blood-thumping blur or violent trance, Her limbs loosened from her own control. She jangled above the pit, enlarging. Apollo moved the bones of her jaw, her clump of tongue, to speak through her mouth A male voice issuing furious barks, a roar. The historian and essayist Plutarch, who worked as a priest at Delphi, Attributed her ecstasies to the pneuma The breath of the fault in the rock. He wrote rather memorably that she looked like a windswept ship. It was probably anaesthetic, the rock’s breath sugared, ethylene or ethane, a heavy, crawling asphyxiant. The sanctuary lacked oxygen. And therefore, lo: the future spilt from her mouth

CANDLES The days of our future stand in before us Like a row of little lit candles Golden candles, warm with life. Behind them stand the days of our past A pitiful row of candles extinguished The nearest still sending up their smoke Cold and melted, withered sticks. I do not want to look, their image makes me sad It saddens me to recall their kindling I look ahead at the ones still burning. I don't want to turn and see, with horror How quickly the line of shadow lengthens How quickly the number of snuffed candles grows.

PLUTON OUTS It only lasted a couple of seconds and I was not in a dream I was standing and walking I was walking and I saw this apparition Un-godly - other world- image walking towards me Walking towards me Walking towards me Walking towards me and all the rush Like a forced wind Like a turmoil Like a whirl of wind Like a magnetic field pushing me back As I walked but I stood forward

The Tall Far Wall We are now nearing the end. And we are standing here in what used to be a brick factory, built in 1958, here in Vere St, Collingwood. And ahead of us is what used to be the original high brick wall of the factory, painted white. And like most things, it has a name. It’s often simply called the brick wall, but its real name is The Tall Far Wall, or sometimes just the TW for short. At the moment we are facing north. To be exact we’re standing at latitude 37.81 degrees south and longitude 144.96 degrees east. But from this point on, being exact like that, gets more difficult. The normal scales of time and space, that we are used to, are liable to change really, and the gaps between become more and more unknowable. To show you what I mean by this, you can see that the Tall Far Wall ahead is a sheer vertical backdrop, but at the same time it’s an expansive, horizontal plain that extends away from us, 5 or more kilometers out to the horizon. And sometimes it stretches even beyond that to where the green rays of the sun flash at sunset.To get accustomed to the wall look more closely and take a moment to scan the land at eye level from the east, that’s on your right, to the west on your left. Luckily for us each quadrant here of the wall has been mapped and labeled for easy identification, and you can see the numbers 1,2,3,4, and then the letters A,B C, so if we look closely we can see past human activity and industry, lots of examples. So let’s find M3, that’s third row up, and M3, at M3 we can see the pitted scabby landscape of an old mining area. What we see are the mine dumps and the tailings, now of course just an old eroded epidermis. And at M15, further north, there are small areas, there are natural folds in the bedrock. There are many around here, but this is a really good example, and it’s called the North Neck, because it’s on the essential conduit, the pathway north actually that we are taking. And looking to the west, F19, if you look carefully you can make out the lines of a bygone farming system. I think they used the four crop rotation system, quite common then, of course long gone now. And you might have noticed a number of circular areas, there are many round here actually, and you’ve guessed it, yes, they are craters, past meteorite events. And also there are elevated points, called the knuckle areas, remnants of earlier reconnaissance points used in the mapping process. But I’m sure you can’t help noticing the two giant aeration grids which are integral to maintaining the circulation of the TFW, the deep seated bellows, heated bellows and a pump underground. And this is the point where we can really notice the gradual changes that have been happening in the bodyscape because now we are approaching the outskirts of the known territory. Habitation is now scarce. The pathway gets difficult to see because weeds are breaking through the tarmac, and the skin is scarred with ancient patterns, the fossil marks of suction feet of lost molluscs. Two cairns here between the aeration grids make the end of what is fully known, of what we understand, but we’ll keep going. It’s still summer, signs of life around us with midges and fireflies, hovering over the circular shallow ponds of yellow water. No flowers here, just flowerless plants, growing sparsely on the dry skin, crusted liverworts, rotting lichens, and underground, chrysomelid beetles and prehistoric stoneflies burrow, weekending the cracked skin. It’s becoming difficult to see ahead. The clouds are lower, and greyer. Possibilities now widen with the unexpected. Stunted xerophyte vegetation scratches our skin with thick spines and unidentified growths. Precise definition and discernment has ended. The rounded ponds have become deeper. They no longer support life. Winter now. Desolation. Beyond the limits. To the east, to the west is the un-named land. Vision stifled, the mist drains away all colour. We’re sinking and suffocating. Nothing is named. Beyond the limits of speech. All is silent, as tethered bells. There is no more

THE VACANT CHAIR A pledge that was taken many years ago I pledged that day to always treasure The love that had been shown So always stand beside me I need to always know you're there And as I sit and look around I see your vacant chair A lifes companion lost once linked with my own Day by day I pray for you as I walk this life alone The house you left is lonely now and I am lonely too Those left behind are good and kind but they can't ever replace you I laugh and smile and play my part But behind smiles hides my broken heart I see your vacant chair